


It’s Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You

by Branch



Series: Avalanche [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: A Touch of Porn, Action, Alternate History, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Fluff, Horror, Humor, Medium Size Character Death, Multi, Politics, Team Dynamics, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-29
Updated: 2011-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-21 23:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 129,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Branch/pseuds/Branch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU in which all the character development of part one gets its due: Kakashi finds another way, Sasuke does not leave the Leaf, Itachi remains a villain, no one is a carbon copy of a previous generation, Sakura grows up to be terrifying, Sasuke finds his way back to family, and Naruto wins all hearts. Featuring Team Seven fluff, filling in the time-skip, and a rather different second half. Drama, Angst, Romance, Fluff, Action, Occasional Porn.</p><p>Runs parallel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/267550">Cloud Hands</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A number of things in the second part of _Naruto_ never made sense to me. Itachi’s sudden retconning into a good guy, despite the stunning and villain-consistent cruelty of his previous treatment of Sasuke was the biggest one. The abrupt shift of the story from a classic shounen bildungsroman focused on team-building to convoluted politics involving Naruto’s solitary apotheosis was another. But the thing that just _niggled_ at me was the utterly ham-handed way everyone, and especially Kakashi, handled the aftermath of Sasuke’s confrontation with his brother. So what, I wondered, what if Kakashi had shown the common sense god gave a small chicken, had shown any of his normal perceptiveness, in handling Sasuke after Sasuke’s set-to with Naruto on the hospital roof? What if Sasuke hadn’t left after all? What would it make of the characters, if they stayed a team for longer? And what if the story remained one about a human’s need for others? This is my answer.
> 
> Because of this, I took the title from a Concrete Blonde song, "I Don't Need A Hero", which seemed to fit extremely well with my feeling that this is a story about all the characters needing each other.
> 
>  **Note on translation:** I have translated _Iwagakure_ , the hidden village of Earth Country, as "Hidden Rock" rather than "Hidden Stone", so as to distinguish it from _Ishigakure_ , the hidden village of the unnamed country between Wind and Earth. I have also translated _kekkei genkai_ as "bloodline talent", rather than "bloodline limit", because the grammatical incorrectness of that makes my soul itch and the most meaningful literal translation ([contextual noun] limited to inheritance by blood) does not make a suitable noun phrase in English.
> 
> So: We pick up midway in the manga, just after the confrontation on the roof, just after Sasuke has thrown off in a snit. Lights. Camera. Action!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kakashi sees Sasuke in a new way and gives him a rather different lecture after his fight with Naruto on the hospital roof.

Kakashi eyed up the tree where Sasuke had finally dug himself in after vanishing from the hospital roof and stifled a sigh. Every team, he reminded himself, was it’s own _unique_ experience. It was only his imagination that this year’s Seven was deliberately working to be especially so.

He climbed quietly up on Sasuke from behind, and really the boy needed to break that habit of ignoring his surroundings when he brooded. At least he’d put his back to something solid this time. Kakashi supposed that was progress of sorts. “Hey.”

Silence. Not even a twitch among the dappled, gold leaf shadows.

Kakashi found a branch a quarter turn around the tree, leaned on the trunk, and propped a casual foot against it–the better to propel himself out of the way if Sasuke lost it again and went for Kakashi like he had for Naruto. “You shouldn’t really be out of the hospital yet,” he tried, speaking from his own lingering aches and twinges. Itachi’s Tsukuyomi had lasting after-effects, which, he was guessing, had been a lot of the reason for the fight. “The medics get upset about losing track of a patient.”

More silence. Kakashi checked off approaches, in his head, that had already failed in the last twenty-four hours, and settled on a blatant appeal to sentiment. Surely there must still be a _little_ of that, after the past year.

“People worry, you know.”

“Then they don’t understand,” Sasuke finally answered, flat.

A flash of familiar exasperation tightened Kakashi’s mouth behind his mask, but he didn’t think an admonition to grow up already would go over very well right now. Not right after Sasuke had faced his brother and been reminded of that bloody night all over again.

Actually… maybe that was the best place to start after all. To show that someone did understand. Now he thought about it, maybe he should have started there a year ago. At the time, he hadn’t known just how much Sasuke himself had seen that night; he should have re-evaluated when he’d found out.

“I was ANBU then, you know. I was on the squad that was sent out to hunt after Itachi that night,” he said, staring out through the branches and over the roofs of the nearby apartments, seeing again the blood spattered and pooled relentlessly all the way across a compound that took up a sixth part of the village. “We started from the compound, to see if we could pick up any hints of where he might be going.” And every member of the squad had come back from that mission dead-eyed, cold down to the marrow. Two had turned in their masks that year; Kakashi had been one of them.

“They weren’t your family.”

A finger of cold slid down Kakashi’s spine, because Sasuke’s empty, even tone was a perfect match for the way most of the team had spoken that night, as they sifted bodies and parts of bodies for the track of madness. “No, they weren’t.” He took a breath against the memories, wondering what memories Sasuke was looking into, starting to be afraid that he’d drastically misjudged his own student’s state of mind all this year. But the words reminded him of when it _had_ been his parents, and that suggested another step he could take. Slowly, feeling his way into what this might mean, he said, “There are people in this village who have walked into blood and death like that. There are people who know the pain of betrayal by their own friends, their own team, even their own blood. There are people who fought for nothing but revenge, though not many who lived in the end. They fought in the Third War.” His voice was soft, now, realizing the truth at the same time he spoke it. “That’s what you’ve seen. What you’ve been in since that night. War.”

Leaves rustled beside him and he looked over to see Sasuke finally looking up at him. And just maybe he knew how to answer the blankness in those eyes, now. “There are people in this village who know what that’s like. And who can tell you some of how to survive it.”

“I don’t care if I survive,” Sasuke cut back, low and intent, “as long as I kill Itachi.”

Kakashi looked down at him, thoughtfully, for a long moment. He hadn’t been able to turn Sasuke away from that determination. If he’d understood sooner where Sasuke’s head and heart were, he might not even have tried. If this had been war time and a comrade had said that to him…

“Do you care if you die before you get to him?” he asked, cool. “That’s where you’re headed right now.” In war… in war, he would even have let one of his squad members use a curse seal–just not unawares. Not without understanding exactly what it meant.

“I need more power!” Sasuke flared up. “It’s always going to be a risk, but I need more!”

Kakashi leaned back against the tree, sure of his way now. “There’s always more power to be had, if you look for it.” He snorted as Sasuke stared at him. “Power isn’t the hard part. What you need right now, to keep you alive long enough to strike your target, is an anchor.”

“An _anchor_? What the hell good is something that holds me back going to do?!”

Kakashi waved a hand, increasingly cheerful as he exasperated his student further. Any emotion was an improvement right now–anything that got Sasuke out of that dead, blood-dripping place in his head. “You’re thinking about it the wrong way. Not an anchor that you have to carry with you in a race. An anchor that can hold you against the current.” He glanced down again, eye as dark and hard as it would be while he laid down mission parameters for one of his squads, and watched Sasuke still in response. “You don’t need to run toward revenge. Revenge is a rogue river in flood; it will take you to the end, like it or not. What you need is a way to not drown. Something to hang on to so you can pull yourself out when you’re going under and dry off and rest your muscles before you dive in again.” Because Sasuke would dive in again, he could see that now. Better to forge him the anchor and trust his own blind determination to make him use it to keep himself alive.

“You’re talking about the team.” Sasuke eyed him mistrustfully. Not a surprise, that, after his vicious little set-to with Naruto.

Kakashi shrugged. “Maybe. For some people it’s their team. For some it’s their family or a lover. For some it’s the village. For some it’s something as simple as a pet. The thing you fight for, fight to come back to. Without that, you’ll drown and fail your mission.”

Of course, it _was_ his team, for Sasuke. He had nothing else but them. But better to let Sasuke figure that out on his own.

…on the other hand, and considering Sasuke, there was nothing wrong with a little bit of a hint.

“We put people in teams in the first place because no one person can do everything it takes to complete a mission. Everyone has their weaknesses. You need to get out of the current. Naruto needs to stop running off the edge of cliffs. Sakura needs to trust herself to move. But your weakness is also your strength. You focus. Naruto doesn’t quit. And, because she stands still, Sakura sees more than either of you.” He cocked his head at Sasuke. “I said power is always handy if you look around for it. The fastest way to find it isn’t to ignore your weaknesses or even work to overcome them. It’s to use them. And that,” he added quietly, “is also the nature of war.”

Sasuke was staring at him now, eyes slowly widening, focusing again on his one goal; the goal, again, not his stubborn, muddled idea of the means. Kakashi hid a smile to see that. Maybe it wasn’t what would be healthy in a normal child, even a normal ninja child, but nothing in Sasuke’s life was especially normal.

“Survive. Use anything.” Abruptly Sasuke slammed a hand down on the branch under him, with such violence that it broke off and he had to cling to the trunk as it fell. He didn’t seem to notice, hunched like one of Fire Country’s great southern hunting cats against the tree. “That’s why! That’s why he said those things! So I wouldn’t see it, so I wouldn’t see how to win!”

“Who said?” Kakashi asked casually, hands poised to lock a knock-out seal around Sasuke if it turned out to be necessary.

“Itachi,” Sasuke hissed. “Live, he said. ‘Cling to your wretched life,’ he said.”

Kakashi took a slow breath, in and out through his nose, and knew anyone watching him right now would see exactly how angry he was, even with just one eye to judge from. So much for the imperturbable Hatake Kakashi. Of course, it was always his teams that had been able to get to him, too. “To make you ashamed of doing what any good shinobi would,” he murmured. “To blunt your edge.” He leaned abruptly around the turn of the tree and caught Sasuke’s shoulder in a hard grip, turning the boy to look at him. “Are you going to let him?” he demanded harshly.

Sasuke straightened, and that black gaze burned back at him. “ _No_.”

Kakashi nodded, accepting his student’s determination. “All right, then. Back to the hospital to get you checked, and checked out. And then…” he smiled suddenly, behind his mask. “Then we go and find Sakura.”

Sasuke, who had already started to screw up his face in response to the part about the hospital blinked. “…Sakura?” He’d probably expected Naruto; Kakashi wondered when those two would admit just how much they defined themselves by each other.

“Of course,” Kakashi said, airly, waving Sasuke after him as he strolled back down the trunk. “I told you, you have a serious case of tunnel vision. You and Naruto are really very alike that way.” He smirked at the faint growl behind him; it was a competitive growl, again, not an infuriated one. “What you need is strategy, and that’s what Sakura is best at.”

“So, what, I learn it from her?” Sasuke hazarded.

“Nope.” Kakashi tilted his head back to look over his shoulder. “You learn to use that tunnel vision of yours, and you learn how to listen to her when she tells you where to aim it.”

Sasuke followed along, frowning to himself. A considerable improvement over homicidal rage toward his teammates, Kakashi congratulated himself. Indeed, he had to work a little not to whistle cheerfully as he strode along, hands in his pockets. If they could just come together again, then next year his team was going to sweep the chuunin exam like a broom. And by then maybe the inkling in the back of his head would have turned into an actual plan. He already had some thoughts about how it all needed to come together.

The only real question he could see was who would try to kill him first: Tsunade for the student he planned to give her, or Sasuke for the tutor Kakashi planned to give him.

As they turned down the dusty street to the hospital, he found himself whistling after all.

* * *

Four sets of eyes watched the two go, hidden among the leaves.

“Fuck,” Tayuya spat, disgusted. “There goes our chance.”

“The kid doesn’t have to come willingly,” Sakon murmured. “Orochimaru-sama just said to try that first, to keep it quiet. We’ll keep watching for an opening.”

They faded back into the shadows of the tiled roofs and were gone.

* * *

Kakashi and Sasuke stalked each other through the training ground, in and out of the trees, flickering through the shadows. Neither of them used any but physical techniques, for both of them had their Sharingan active. Sasuke had hesitated over that, but Kakashi wasn’t about to let the enemy deprive one of his subordinates of his strongest weapon and waited calmly until Sasuke gave in to the logic of the exercise and activated his too. The chuunin exam had done his students good, Kakashi observed; he had yet to spot Sakura, who was mission control for this exercise. If she honed this talent for stillness of hers, she would be second to none at infiltration some day.

Of course, he had yet to spot Naruto either, but that was most likely because the note informing the boy of his team’s renewed training was still chasing him around the village while he searched stubbornly for Sasuke.

He also hadn’t seen Tsunade, and he expected to know the minute she got his other note, the one about modifying his currently assigned mission. He hoped Naruto would get here first, so he could start things back on track with his team before he had to explain his logic to his new Hokage.

As if summoned by his thoughts, Naruto dashed out of the edge of the trees and screeched to a halt, looking around a little wildly. “Kakashi-sensei!”

Kakashi signaled a break, tugging his forehead protector down over his eye again, and smiled to himself as Sasuke touched down across the clearing, wary. “There you are. You know, punctuality is very important to a shinobi; you should work on that.” He let the smile show as both Sasuke and Naruto gave him identical looks of disbelief at the utter hypocrisy of Hatake Kakashi lecturing anyone on punctuality. It was important for a team to have common interests to bond over, after all.

The boys caught each other’s eyes and looked away.

Predictably, it was Naruto who offered the first peace overture; Kakashi had only had to teach him once about the value of a team. He jammed his fists into his pockets and looked sidelong at Sasuke. “You done being a jerk yet?” he muttered.

Sasuke stiffened. “I’m not…” He broke off. Whatever self-deception Sasuke sometimes indulged in, Kakashi acknowledged, even he could recognize that magnitude of untruth when it started to come out of his mouth. Sasuke looked down, mouth tight. Finally, softly, he said, “No. Probably not until Itachi is dead.”

At their age, that would have made Kakashi go bang his head against a rock a few times, but Naruto’s face cleared at once. “Well okay. As long as you’re just being a normal jerk.”

Sasuke looked up at that, expression blank for a breath. Slowly, though, the blankness melted into something sardonic and challenging. More edgy than usual, but closer to his normal expression than they’d seen all week. “As long as you’re being a normal idiot.”

They smirked at each other and Kakashi really couldn’t help rolling his eyes.

And in that sliver of distraction, Sakura popped out of her grass-covered dugout, eyes blazing in her dirt-smeared face, and slammed her hand down on a prepared seal. “ _Now!_ ” she barked.

Sasuke whipped around in pure, unthinking response and drove a kunai toward Kakashi’s diaphragm.

Startled, from a cold start, snapshots of thought flashed through Kakashi’s mind. Sakura had never stopped watching. Sasuke had never de-activated his Sharingan. His elbow was coming down on Sasuke’s forearm with full force, and Sakura’s seal was slowing his responses, and he didn’t know if he could pull it in time–unintended consequences. The kunai kissed his ribs as he twisted. Sasuke wasn’t going to recover his stance in time to deflect the elbow strike.

Naruto’s foot struck his arm, pushing the blow harmlessly aside, and all three of them spun away from each other again.

Kakashi straightened, hand pressed to his ribs; the cut was shallow, but noticeable. “Well, now,” he murmured, and broke into a smile. “That was a bit more like it.”

Sakura actually punched the air with triumph before recalling herself and clasping her hands demurely. She couldn’t erase the grin on her face, though, and Sasuke nodded what might be thanks to her. More hesitantly, he glanced over at Naruto. “Your timing’s getting better,” he offered gruffly.

Naruto had his hands squarely on his hips and was glaring. “And yours is getting worse! What the hell was that?”

“That,” Kakashi intervened lightly, “was your new training regimen. To take advantage of your particular strengths and learn to use even your weaknesses.” He cocked his head at Naruto. “You jumped right in without thinking or asking the first question, just like Sasuke took the opportunity that Sakura saw without caring for the consequences. And that’s why this exercise worked.”

“Huh.” While Naruto worked through that, though, Sakura’s grin had melted into a thoughtful frown.

“Isn’t this a dangerous way to operate, Kakashi-sensei?” she asked, hesitant. “I mean… it will mean we’re all getting even more unbalanced, as as shinobi.”

“Shinobi _are_ unbalanced,” Kakashi said quietly. “We teach you all of the basics that we can, but after that you have to start concentrating on what you’re good at. And accepting what you’re bad at. You just have to trust the team you’re in to balance it out.” He ruffled her hair with a wry, hidden smile behind his mask. “That’s what reality is, Sakura. This is how it goes once you’re out of the classroom.”

Her pale eyes were shadowed as she looked up at him. “Oh,” she said very softly. And then she took a breath and straightened her shoulders. “All right, then.”

Sasuke was unquestionably a genius, and Naruto might well be the greatest idiot savant the world had ever seen, but Kakashi thought that, of all his students, Sakura might be the best _shinobi_ in the end.

All four of them looked up as a cloud of birds suddenly rose from the administrative quarter of the village and a wordless yell drifted faintly over the trees. “Ah,” Kakashi said brightly, “that would be my appointment with the Hokage.”

* * *

Tsunade, fifth Hokage of Konohagakure, slapped a hand down on the scrap of paper in the middle of her desk, glaring daggers at Kakashi. “Explain,” she growled.

“Team Seven was assigned to me so that I could keep an eye on both Naruto and Sasuke,” Kakashi pointed out. “If I’m to fulfill that mission, already in progress, then I need to keep the team with me.”

Tsunade crossed her arms and sat back, looking skeptical. “You know how shorthanded we are! And, while none of them were advanced to chuunin, they all demonstrated plenty enough power to start taking missions solo.”

“As you said, none of them were advanced.” Kakashi turned a hand palm up. “The final decider in that test is maturity, isn’t it? Do you really want three people of their demonstrated power running around and _not_ learning the maturity to wield it well?” He looked meaningfully out the window of her office, to where the mangled cisterns on top of the hospital were just visible.

Shizune, standing behind Tsunade’s shoulder, grimaced. "Tsunade-sama, perhaps he’s right. At this rate, there will be people thinking Naruto and Sasuke are already out of control."

"Mm." Tsunade laced long, fine fingers under her chin, elbows propped on the padded arms of her chair. “That isn’t a nice thought. But neither is the idea of Cloud or Rock deciding to invade us because we’re suddenly taking fewer contracts and must, therefore, be weakened. And they’d be right,” she added, dourly. “Why the hell did I let that brat talk me into this?”

Hearing the helpless affection under her exasperation, Kakashi had to stifle a grin. Yes, he rather thought she’d agree to his tutoring plans a year from now. She’d yell about it, but she’d agree. “They _are_ quite strong,” he offered. “I can take on A and even some S rank missions, with them as my team.”

She cocked a brow at him. “S rank?”

Kakashi hesitated, but she was, after all, Hokage now. She probably needed to know. “It will be beneficial if they face serious danger together. That’s always been the circumstance under which they come together as a team and support each other. And if they don’t come back to that, if Sasuke and Naruto, especially, don’t remember how to trust each other again, we’re going to lose Sasuke.”

Shizune hissed between her teeth, and she reached out to clasp Tsunade’s shoulder. Tsunade’s entire body had frozen, breath stilling, eyes icy. “He would go to Orochimaru?” she asked, very flat.

“That has become less likely,” Kakashi said, picking his words carefully as he spoke to this, Orochimaru’s old teammate. “Sasuke has some alternatives, now. I believe that he will pursue his course from within the village.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “But unless he can accept Naruto’s and Sakura’s support, he’ll be killed when he finally confronts his brother.”

“Damn Uchiha Itachi to reincarnation as a worm for a hundred lives,” Tsunade muttered. “The village was already weakened by the death of the Uchiha clan, and now this!” She planted her elbows on the desk, fingers driven into her hair, and was silent for three breaths. “All right,” she said, finally, not looking up. “The four of you are going to get the hardest, nastiest missions short of ANBU work, you realize that?”

“I planned for it,” Kakashi agreed calmly. “If you can give me a week to settle them back into training, that will be useful.”

She glared at him some more. “A week he wants! Why don’t you ask me for the peaches of immortality while you’re at it?” She flipped through the mess of binders on her desk, frowning ferociously, until Shizune extracted one quietly and handed it to her. “All right, you can have a week," she snapped, paging through it. "Not more! And then you’ll leave directly for Tajimura, up north.” She pulled out a red folder and tossed it across to him. “They’ve been having serious trouble with bandits, and the local garrison thinks that it’s a band of missing-nin from Cloud and Mist.” She gave him the tight smile of someone anticipating sharing her headache. “There could be as many as twenty in the band.”

“I’m sure it will be a learning experience,” Kakashi murmured as he read.

“And send both Naruto and Sasuke to me, before you go,” she added. “I want to have a look at their seals. Jiraiya said that Naruto’s had been interfered with, and I’ve got to find a way to undo that curse seal on Sasuke, too.”

Kakashi nodded. “That seal really isn’t a temptation I like put in the way of any genin, especially not one as driven as Sasuke. Not if there’s any choice.”

Her mouth twisted. “That too. But, more urgently I think, Mitarashi Anko plans to kill herself, rather than let hers be activated again.”

A chill stroked down Kakashi’s spine again. War. It might be coming to them again. “I’ll tell them to see you,” he agreed quietly.

* * *

“So?” Jiroubou asked. “What did it say?”

Sakon rolled the message strip into a tiny cylinder and breathed fire onto it. "It’s from Kabuto. Orochimaru-sama couldn’t hold out and had to transfer into a new body. It says if the Uchiha brat comes willingly, fine, but if he won’t then look for a time we can take him without getting anyone on our trail." His mouth curled. "I suppose taking an unwilling host is distracting for a while. We should be polite and not lead any of Leaf back to Orochimaru-sama’s doorstep."

"From Kabuto?" Tayuya asked, suspicious.

"Mm. I think, perhaps, we should go back and confirm our orders, if there isn’t an opening soon."

The four of them looked at each other and nodded. No sense getting killed for it if this was really a scheme of the damn doctor’s. And surely the Uchiha kid wouldn’t be much harder to take, even if they waited a bit.

  


  


  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Team Seven is on the road again, putting out fires for Konoha in the wake of the invasion and learning a little more about each other and themselves.

_To: The Fifth_  
 _From: Kakashi_  
 _Re: Bandits_

_There weren't twenty of them; there were thirty. Fortunately, only sixteen of those were actually missing-nin. Unfortunately, three of the sixteen were jounin. Will be late getting home due to Naruto's broken leg, Sasuke's broken arm and ribs, Sakura's bruised kidneys and blood loss. Please have a medic and a new mission on hand. The only team-building they can do in the hopsital is pranks, and then Shizune will try to poison me again._

* * *

Journey breaks, these days, meant a chance to train more. Going out on their third mission in two months certainly drove home the urgency of their village's need for shinobi who were as strong as they could be, so Sakura didn't grudge it. Not that that seemed to be the consideration that drove the boys the hardest, of course.

"Show me that Rasengan some more. I want to watch it with the Sharingan and see how it works."

"Only if you show me how Chidori works."

"Not that you'll be able to _do_ it, but fine."

 _Boys_ , Sakura thought in disgust, and tried to pretend that she wasn't just as interested in both techniques as they were. Kakashi-sensei had known what he was doing, teaching Sasuke Chidori, she decided, watching. It was a technique that required focus, something to cut and pierce at close range, tightly aimed. It was Sasuke all over.

She could see ways to use that.

She leaned back against her battered green pack, taking small sips from her water bottle. That was the kind of thought she would have tried to avoid a year ago. It still felt strange, to look at her teammates and see tactics instead of romantic candle-glow, or, in Naruto's case, a haze of furious red. But Kakashi-sensei said that kind of thinking was her strength and she should use it, build on it. He kept asking her to think of things that brought that way of seeing out. Part of her preened over being recognized as the brains of this team. 

Part of her sulked that she wasn't being recognized as a strong arm, for the team.

She sighed and rolled over, tucking under her pack with a practiced curl for shelter from the rain of splinters as Chidori tore apart a tree. She was becoming a good shinobi; surely that was enough to satisfy anyone.

She rolled back up and watched again as Naruto prepared for the Rasengan.

Five minutes and another couple trees later, she was staring at Naruto thoughtfully, absently twisting the cap of her water bottle in her fingers. "It's not that you're good at this," she said, thinking out loud. "It's that you figure out ways to use the couple tools you've got, like the kage-bunshin, to do anything you need to."

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto protested. "I am so good at this!"

"No, she's got a point," Kakashi-sensei murmured from under his tree and behind his book. "The only reason the multiple shadow clone technique doesn't kill you is your chakra reserves. You took that fluke and made it work for you, though, even to mastery of an A-rank technique."

Sakura nodded. "That's what I meant. You... you don't see any limits on how you use what you've got." And she could use that, too. Naruto would never think there wasn't a way to do something; he'd always find one, just like Sasuke would never move off a target. And Sakura herself... well, she might as well admit it, she would always want to _direct_ , and maybe, just maybe, she could now. That was a really nice thought. Sakura smiled at both the boys, suddenly excited in a new way that had nothing to do with either romance or anger. "We're going to be a really strong team."

Kakashi-sensei winked at her from behind his book.

* * *

_To: The Fifth_  
 _From: Kakashi_  
 _Re: I have a bad feeling about this_

_I think someone is tracking us. I've sensed what I'm fairly certain is the same presence on two separate missions, now. Send someone to shadow us on the way in._

* * *

Naruto hadn't known what Kakashi-sensei meant when he'd grumbled about "government work" at the start of this job. He was starting to get it now, though. They were up in the Lightning Country, and they'd snuck past the border, which had actually been a lot of fun, and they were perched outside the fortress of the merchant lord they'd come to sink. The guy had an _army_ of his very own, which wouldn't have been all that much of a problem since none of them were shinobi, but there _were_ Cloud-nin mixed in there with them. Real Cloud-nin, not renegades or deserters! And Sakura-chan said that meant that all the bad things this merchant's shipping did to Fire shipping, like piracy and sinking and ships that just disappeared, was really done by the Lightning government, and so they absolutely couldn't let any of those Cloud-nin know it was them, Leaf-nin, who had come to destroy the guy's fleet.

That was the part Naruto didn't really understand. Wouldn't it be better to know that the Leaf wasn't going to stand for that? Sasuke rolled his eyes when Naruto said that, but that was just Sasuke being his natural jerk self and it didn't mean anything. Naruto was actually a little glad to see it. Sasuke was a lot more himself now they were out on missions again, all about training and getting stronger. That was the kind of thing Naruto understood, that was the kind of attitude he could get behind, because it meant they could all train together, and sometimes he could show Sasuke up, which made it a lot easier to take the times Sasuke showed him up. Though he wasn't _completely_ sure Sasuke understood about that, and sometimes he got all brooding and shit, and then Naruto had to do Sexy no Jutsu at him to make him stop, and nearly getting a Chidori shoved up his nose was totally worth the look on Sasuke's face. But anyway, Sakura-chan said they had to keep it quiet, and he trusted her. She was definitely the smart one, maybe even smarter than Kakashi-sensei, because Sakura-chan was just that awesome.

But keeping it quiet was a lot less fun, and a lot more trouble.

"We need to destroy a minimum of three quarters of his ships, and definitely these five that are armored," Kakashi-sensei tapped the sketch of the harbor, spread on the shadowy brown floor of the pine grove they were camped in, "without letting the Cloud-nin get a look at us. Thoughts on how to accomplish that?"

"If we take a day to write out explosive seals, we could have enough to do all the ships," Sakura-chan suggested. 

"We'd have to get them all set, a handful to a ship, within a very short time," Sasuke pointed out. "If any are found, it will start a search for more."

"Naruto's multiple Shadow Clone technique might do for that," Sakura-chan said, but she sounded doubtful, and Naruto pouted.

"I could totally do it," he said. "There aren't _that_ many ships."

"You couldn't do it and be quiet," Sasuke declared. "You couldn't be quiet to save your life."

"More to the point," Kakashi-sensei cut in as Naruto scowled, "it's to save others. If you're discovered, you'll have to kill whoever spotted you. There's no other choice, on this mission. We've been active in the field for seven months straight, now, and we have to assume that Cloud has the means to recognize us, even though you're all technically genin and wouldn't normally be in the bingo books yet. They might even have shown pictures of the most likely operatives to the regular soldiers. We can't afford to be recognized."

After a long pause, Sakura-chan asked, hesitant, "We... have to kill just on the suspicion?"

"Yes," Kakashi-sensei said, and there was no room at all for argument in that.

Naruto swallowed hard. Maybe he hadn't known what Kakashi-sensei meant when he talked about government work, after all.

"If Cloud knows that Leaf did this, they'll take it as an excuse to attack openly," Sasuke reasoned out, cool and detached in the falling dusk. "Killing a handful of sailors or Cloud-nin to keep that from happening actually keeps the most people alive. Especially our people. It only makes sense."

"There should be a way to do it so we don't have to kill them either," Naruto protested. "Can't we, I don't know, talk to them or something?"

"Not often." Kakashi-sensei sighed and sat back against one of the tall, straight pines. "I doubt you got this part of it in history class. Our most recent treaty with Cloud was actually offered as a way to get their field commander inside our village. Under the pretext of negotiations, he tried to kidnap Hyuuga Hinata so they could study the Hyuuga bloodline talent. Her father killed him. So Cloud demanded his head for the 'offense', threatening to go back to war if they didn't get it."

Naruto's eyes were huge, and so were Sakura-chan's. Sasuke was looking down at his knees. "What happened?" Sakura-chan whispered.

Kakashi-sensei's voice was quiet in the growing dark. "The clan head's twin brother offered his life in his twin's place, since he was marked with the seal that would bind his cells at death and lock them from any medical technique that might pry into the Hyuuga genes. It was done, and his head was sent back to Cloud with the remaining emissaries. They left a binding treaty behind, witnessed by representatives from Rock and Sand, so even when they realized what we'd done they didn't dare repudiate it. We and they have raided each other since then, in covert operations like this, but we've kept any excuse for open war out of their hands."

"And... we have to keep doing that now." Sakura-chan's arms were wrapped around herself, and her jaw was tight. Naruto came to a new resolution right then and there.

"Someday," he said, firmly, "there'll be another way to do it. When I'm Hokage, I'll make it happen."

"When pigs fly, then," Sasuke snorted. "You are so naive. And we still need a fast, quiet way to plant the explosive tags."

"Hey!" Naruto yelled, and then crossed his arms. "I'll find a way to do anything. That's my strength, Sakura-chan and Kakashi-sensei both say so." He preened.

"Just not a quiet way," Sasuke shot back, all dry and _sardonic_ and stuff. Naruto didn't used to know what that meant, before he met Sasuke.

"Both of you cut it out," Sakura-chan ordered, sounding annoyed, but that was okay because Naruto could see she was trying not to smile, and that was a lot better than how she'd looked while Kakashi-sensei was talking. "Okay, look, if we plant the tags on the outsides that should blow good holes in all of them except the five armored ships. So if we do the regular ships first, that's one armored for each of us and two for Kakashi-sensei, and very little chance of the tags being spotted before we set them off."

Kakashi-sensei smiled. "Good. Now, how are you going to keep yourselves unseen, while you plant tags in the armored ships?"

"Camouflage fabric for when we need to take cover, but that won't do for when we're moving," Sakura started out.

"We're on water, what about that light-bending reflection technique Kakashi-sensei picked up in Hot Springs Country two missions back?" Sasuke suggested.

"I bet they wouldn't notice the tags at all if I went in as a girl," Naruto put in, grinning, and scored a point to himself when Sasuke actually groaned.

Maybe this could be a little fun after all. 

* * *

_They're following Sasuke. Coming home through Water Country instead of overland, to keep away from Sound. -K_

* * *

Sasuke stood with his team in front of the Hokage's desk and kicked Naruto's ankle when he fidgeted. 

The Fifth steepled her hands and looked at them over her fingers. "This is something that would have to be done before you attempted the exams again, but I'd hoped to take a little more time to study the seal. Unfortunately, we've confirmed that you're being followed, and there's only one group that's likely to be behind it." She looked disgruntled for a moment. "Though we haven't caught the bastards yet." She took a breath and laid her hands down flat on her polished desktop, looking Sasuke in the eye. "It's your choice whether to attempt this procedure now. I must tell you that the other person who's undergone it so far is... not unscathed. Mitarashi's chakra still hasn't recovered completely, and I've begun to fear that it's permanently scarred."

"Then why did you attempt it on her?" Sakura asked, frowning, and blushed as soon as the words were out of her mouth, adding hastily, "Hokage-sama. I mean, if I may ask."

Sasuke thought Sakura made a lot more sense when she forgot to be polite.

The Fifth's mouth tightened and her fingers laced. "Because I made the mistake of telling Anko how close I thought I was to finding a way and she knows how closely Sound is watching our village. She threatened to kill herself to remove a potential security breach if I didn't attempt it at once." She passed a hand over her forehead and muttered, "I don't even have enough shinobi to spare one for medical watch on someone of her skills."

Considering what he'd seen of Orochimaru, and what he'd heard since, Sasuke thought Mitarashi made plenty of sense, too. There was really only one point that he wanted cleared up. "If I chose to wait, what happens then?"

"We'll have to take you off your team and keep you in the village until the operation is stable," the Fifth said, soberly. "It's the only way to make reasonably sure you aren't taken."

"No," Sasuke said instantly, and then had to pause, taken aback by his own surety. It didn't change, though, when he prodded at it cautiously, in his mind. Any thought of staying here, of being left behind while Naruto and Sakura went out on more missions... no. Just, no.

"Yeah, that wouldn't be right," Naruto agreed, arms crossed. "Sasuke is one of us!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes, easing back into familiar disgust with the simplicity of Naruto's worldview. This time, though, the idiot had the right answer. How was Sasuke supposed to keep getting stronger without his team to work with, after all? It was only practical to stay with them.

Sakura was chewing her lip. "If it's still dangerous, though," she started, and he glared at her. Did she really think he was a coward? She glared back, hands on her hips. "I'm not saying you're scared or anything like that! I'm saying, what if this damages _your_ chakra? What if it leaves you weaker? If you can prevent that by spending a mission or two on the sidelines, it only makes sense! You have to balance the costs with the gains, _honestly_."

Sasuke glanced aside at that. If this were a mission, he admitted grudgingly, he would accept her evaluation. That was her part.

"What are the odds, if you do this procedure now?" Kakashi-sensei asked quietly from where he leaned against the wall of the office.

"I judge there's an eighty-five percent chance of full removal with no chakra scarring." The Fifth looked at Sasuke as she said it, not Kakashi. "In another three months, I believe I could increase that to at least ninety-five."

Naruto looked daunted and Sakura screwed up her mouth. She didn't immediately say it wasn't worth it, though. Kakashi-sensei was silent, and Sasuke looked back over his shoulder, curious. His teacher met his eyes, gaze level and waiting.

Sasuke thought about that look and prodded again at his feeling he shouldn't leave his team. Slowly, he said, "What good is an anchor if I let go of it?"

The corner of Kakashi-sensei's eye crinkled, the sign of his hidden smile.

"What anchor?" Naruto demanded, bouncing a little on his toes, on the scent of a secret.

"The one you are around my neck," Sasuke muttered.

"Hey!"

Naruto went to punch him in the shoulder and Sasuke avoided it disdainfully, hooking out an ankle to trip Naruto into a chair as he deserved, except that even idiots could be quick on their feet and Naruto hopped over it. They were just starting to settle in for a proper round of it when Sakura pushed them apart, cheeks a mortified red. 

"Stop that, the both of you! Not in front of the _Hokage_!"

Naruto straightened up looking hangdog. The Hokage in question, on the other hand, looked like she was trying not to laugh. "So." She paused to clear her throat and managed, more seriously. "What is your decision?"

Sasuke drew a long breath, a little amazed by how easy it felt. "I'll do it now. I don't really want to leave this team."

The Fifth's eyes softened and he tried not to shuffle or fidget like Naruto would have. "All right," she said quietly. "I need a week to prepare and clear my schedule. You three are off duty until then." She nodded to Kakashi, dismissing them.

As they walked out of the administrative building, Naruto said stoutly, "We'll come with you, when you go in to do this."

"Not into an operating room, Naruto," Sakura admonished. "We'll wait outside, then."

Part of Sasuke pointed out that there was no need, and it would be a waste of their time. But another part, the part that kept thinking about the number eighty-five and the floating, corrosive rage that came to him whenever he'd activated the seal, was glad they'd be there.

* * *

As it turned out, they were in the operating room after all. Sakura wasn't sure how she felt about that. Tsunade-sama had come banging through the library yesterday afternoon while Sakura was distracting the boys with some fascinating camouflage illusion techniques she'd found. The Hokage's hair had been half out of its ties, and her eyes had been blazing.

"I have an idea!" she'd declared and thumped a hand down on their table, leaning over them. "Naruto! Do you want to help out with this operation?"

Naruto had looked downright alarmed, and frankly so had Sasuke. "Me? But I don't know anything about healing!"

"Doesn't matter. I just need you to supply chakra to me."

"Oh." Naruto had settled. "Well, yeah, sure."

Sasuke had blinked at him. "'Yeah, sure'?" he'd echoed, disbelieving.

Naruto had looked at him, puzzled. "Well, yeah. The seal is a problem. Tsunade-baba's gonna get it off you. If she needs some of my chakra to do it without hurting you, what's the problem? It makes sense, doesn't it?"

After a moment, Sasuke had looked aside. "Nothing you do makes sense, why should this be any different?" he'd muttered. Sakura had expected Naruto to fire up at the insult, the way he usually did, the way the two of them always bickered and snapped, but instead Naruto had leaned back in his chair, tipping it up on two legs, and just grinned. He'd looked... satisfied.

Tsunade-sama had smiled and ruffled Naruto's hair. "Kind of figured you'd say that." Naruto's grin had turned downright smug.

"But..!" Sakura had nearly pulled her own hair in frustration. When was she going to get Naruto to actually think about these things before he jumped in?! "Tsunade-sama! Naruto's chakra flow isn't smooth enough for any medical application, and how can he possibly learn that fast enough?"

"Doesn't matter," Tsunade-sama had waved a dismissive hand. "We'll take care of it with seals. Here, look at this." She'd pulled a sheaf of paper out of her obi and spread it out on the table. "See? The Three Gates gathering seal linked to the Dragon at Dawn seal will smooth any spikes out, and if the whole thing is buffered through the Summer Rain chakra dispersal seal the level should be constant."

Sakura had traced the complex figures with a fingertip, starting to understand; it was a brilliant piece of work. "But Tsunade-sama," she'd finally said, with what she later recognized was unfortunate innocence in anyone dealing with Tsunade of the Leaf, "these seals have to be held externally. In fact, if I'm reading this right, it's the chakra control of the person holding them that will make it all work, and they'll have to be familiar with the chakra of the person sourcing. And Kakashi-sensei left on that short-term solo job with a caravan to Grass..."

Tsunade had smiled down at her like a cat with a plump tuna of its very own. "That, Sakura-chan, is where you come in."

And so here she was, kneeling outside circles on circles of figures, hands folded in the Rat seal, breathing slow and steady to help give her a rhythm she could smooth the wild riptide of Naruto's chakra into. She'd been right; the seals were a brilliant piece of work and she'd never have been able to do this without their structure. As a scholar, she was lost in admiration and a little envy.

As the person having to breathe steady while one of her teammates lay barely more than arm's reach away and screamed, and another of her teammates sat in the circles of seals biting his lip until it bled and digging his fingers into the floor, she was only trying her damnedest not to break.

"Cauterize!" Tsunade snapped at last, visibly glowing hands still pressed hard to Sasuke's back over the Gate of Limit and the Gate of View, and Shizune—her only assistant, and they really were that short-handed weren't they, and why was she thinking about that at a time like this—stepped forward and traced layer on layer of medical seals over Sasuke's shoulder, fast and grim. Sasuke's screams finally subsided into hoarse, senseless, gasping. Tsunade was chanting under her breath, presumably to Sasuke, "Down... that's right, bring it down... no need to go bleeding your goddamn chakra all over the landscape you stubborn bastard, bring it _down_..."

Tsunade-sama certainly had an unusual bedside manner, Sakura thought very distantly and almost giggled. Stress, she told herself, and pressed her hands together tighter.

"Done," Shizune declared, running light fingers over each major chakra release point in turn. "Okay, it's steady. Head is good. Hands are good. Spine?"

Tsunade breathed out and slowly, warily, lifted her hands. "...good." She ran down the chakra points herself, nodding, and finally turned to Sakura and Naruto. "All right, we're done. Naruto, get yourself buttoned up again so Sakura can let the seals go without blowing the whole top floor off the hospital."

Naruto _growled_ , and Sakura looked up at him, startled, and abruptly alarmed. His eyes... his eyes were strange.

"Naruto!" Tsunade barked. "Sasuke is safe!"

Slowly, the strangeness in Naruto's eyes went away and the tension in his hands eased; there were actually holes in the tile floor where his fingers had been. Tsunade came and rested a hand on Sakura's shoulder. "Okay," she said calmly. "Let it go, easy now."

As the pressure of Naruto's chakra ebbed out of the channels the seals created, Sakura slowly pried her hands apart and eased into the formal release. " _Kai_ ," she whispered, distantly surprised by how rough her voice was. And how she was shaking. Tsunade supported her and said, matter-of-fact. "Good work, both of you. Naruto, I know we pushed it with this, but you need to work on your control. Sakura, for you it's your endurance."

That cool, ruthless, teacherly evaluation actually steadied her. Sakura took a deep breath and said, in a more normal voice, "Yes, Tsunade-sama."

Tsunade smiled. "Now, come on, and see for yourselves that he's all right." She actually laughed as they both scrambled past her to Sasuke's side. Naruto took his shoulders, looking down at him fierce and intent, and Sakura laid a hand over his heart, letting out a shaky sigh at the feel of a strong, even pulse under her palm.

"We won't know for sure until he's recovered enough to work out a little, but all the signs are very good so far," Tsunade told them.

"The way he was screaming, though..." Naruto muttered, not looking up.

"Orochimaru sank some of his chakra into Sasuke's," Tsunade-sama said quietly, coming to stand beside them. "Like fangs. And it mixed a little into Sasuke's, like poison in the bloodstream, or a parasite. Getting that out was... not easy." She smiled down at Naruto, and it suddenly came to Sakura that Tsunade-sama looked exhausted too, pale and damp-haired with sweat. "I don't think even I could have done it and kept his chakra from hemorrhaging without you to supply a transfusion."

Naruto looked up at that, eyes so wide and defenseless that it made Sakura's breath catch. Had she really just imagined that feral strangeness? "He's really going to be okay?" he begged.

Tsunade rested a hand on his head. "I think so."

Shizune returned with a rolling cot and made to lift Sasuke onto it, but Naruto scooted in and picked Sasuke up himself. "I'll do it," he muttered, gruffly.

Sakura scrubbed a fast hand over her eyes, telling herself it was just the stress that was making her react this way, and swallowed the lump out of her throat. "Can we stay with him until he wakes up?" she asked, only a little husky.

"I imagine that would be for the best, yes," Tsunade agreed, and shooed them after the cot as it rolled out. "Go on. Don't forget to drink some water and stretch while you wait."

There was some comforting bustle getting Sasuke settled in a small recovery room, and one of the orderlies brought a pitcher of water and, after a long look at them, a stack of rough white towels. Sakura buried her head in one for a few long breaths.

"You okay, Sakura-chan?" A hesitant hand rested on her shoulder.

Sakura managed a smile for Naruto as she looked up. "Yeah. I'm okay. Just tired out."

She let him fuss and pour water for her, and watched Sasuke's chest rise and fall with his breathing, and promised herself that she would never, ever, _ever_ go into medicine as her specialty. Ever. A battlefield would be easier to handle than this. Anything would be easier.

When Sasuke's eyes finally opened and she saw him coil up, tense as he always was, and then actually relax when he saw them there beside him, she had to let Naruto distract Sasuke while she scrubbed the towel over her face again to wipe away the water in her eyes.

* * *

_From: Tsunade_   
_To: Kakashi_   
_Re: Naruto_

_KAKASHI, GET YOUR ASS RIGHT BACK HERE IMMEDIATELY, I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU. WHAT THE HELL WAS SARUTOBI THINKING?!_

* * *

Tsunade had her hands over her face. "So let me get this straight," she said through them. "After the attack, after Minato-kun sacrificed himself and his child to ensure the Nine-tails was hosted and sealed again, Sarutobi-sensei decided that no one should air it around that Naruto was Minato and Kushina's own son. Okay. That's not all that unusual, in fact the Hokage's children usually don't really want that played up. I'm glad someone benefited from the lesson of my own childhood embarrassments. Fine. Great. It's really fucking stupid that no one ever told _Naruto_ who his parents were, but whatever. But! Then! Then he actually forbids anyone to talk about the Nine-tails or its hosting at all! Which just ensures that none of the next generation understand about the tailed beasts, or knows why their parents are acting like such assholes to this poor kid, or have the chance to decide they're going to be cool and rebellious by making Naruto out to be a hero like Minato-kun requested as his dying wish! And Naruto didn't even know what he was until he was told by a traitor two years ago, and even then no one fucking told him what it meant! Have I got all this right?"

She still hadn't looked up from her hands, which was making Kakashi just a little nervous. "Yes, I think that's about it," he agreed, calculating whether it would be faster to leave by the door or the windows if the legendary Tsunade-hime lost her legendary temper.

She slammed her hands down on the desktop, which cracked, and glared at him. "Well that stops right now. I hereby repeal Sarutobi-sensei's order of silence regarding the Nine-tails. That attack and the results of it are going to be taught in _school_ , Kakashi."

"I'm sure the curriculum committee will have an interesting time with that," he murmured, smirking, and added more cautiously, "And what do you want to tell Naruto himself?"

Tsunade opened her mouth furiously, stopped short, and slowly closed it again. "You're his teacher, Kakashi," she finally said. "Will it help or hurt, at this point, to know who his parents were?"

It was Kakashi's turn to be quiet for a while, thinking. "Naruto has made a lot of progress. He has the acknowledgement of his team. He's made connections with some of the other genin. He's even made a friend in the new Kazekage. He isn't as desperate as he was."

"But?" Tsunade asked softly.

"But," Kakashi agreed, "most of the village hasn't changed their minds. A lot of the older shinobi haven't. I think... I think it might be best to wait until after he passes the chuunin exam. That might be enough acknowledgment that it won't hurt him as much to know that he's the son of a hero and even that didn't stop our people from treating him like trash."

Tsunade winced. Kakashi felt much the same way, but he continued steadily.

"If he'd known from the start, it might have been a talisman for him; if it had been public, it might even have stopped some of the hate. Or at least muffled it. But to tell everyone this late in the day... it has to be at the right time."

Tsunade rubbed her forehead. "For someone with children and grandchildren of his own, Sarutobi-sensei could be a real idiot about how to deal with kids," she muttered.

"I believe that is why Asuma tries to get people to forget his family name, yes. Or one reason at least. And what about the Nine-tails?" Kakashi added.

"We have to actually train him, and train him soon," Tsunade said, so flatly that Kakashi felt a stir of alarm.

"Tsunade-sama, why, exactly, did you call me back so abruptly?" he asked slowly.

"I drew on Naruto's chakra while I was operating to remove Orochimaru's seal from Sasuke." She crossed her arms, tight. "The fox itself came out just a little, then."

Kakashi's fingers bit into the edge of the desk as he surged forward a step. " _What?_ "

"I think it was just bleed-through, as the seal is made to permit. But he changed a little, physically—his eyes and his nails both." She looked understandably grim. "Kakashi, Naruto had no training or guidance at all, thanks to his mother's death, and he's had this thing in him since he was born! And Sarutobi-sensei's order of silence means he's never even studied any of the scrolls left by other hosts. I think the fox is starting to resonate with Naruto's emotions, and when that happens some of its consciousness or nature gets through along with its chakra."

Kakashi scrubbed his hands through his hair, completely understanding the vehemence of Tsunade's summons home, now. "We have to train him," he agreed. "Get him as much teaching as possible, anyway. Maybe Sand has some resources they can lend us. But maybe not until after the exam for this, either."

Tsunade frowned. "And if his emotions get stirred up during the exam?"

Kakashi snorted. "After what happened when the One-tail's host went through last year, I really doubt anything Naruto does will stir anyone up much." He slid his hands into his pockets and crossed his fingers. "Besides, the next exam is hosted in Sand, and they owe us one."

"Mmm. Well, I suppose it was triggered, this time, by his desire to protect his team. That's a positive sign, I think." Tsunade spun her chair around and stared out her wide windows, over the colored tiles of the village roofs for a while. "All right," she said at last. "After the exam, we tell Naruto about his parents and the background of his demon. I'll get some of the ANBU with their heads on straight to seed the information about his parents through the village, and send out an official notice repealing the Third's order or silence. We'll make a big deal about whatever training we find for Naruto, to calm everyone down." She spun back around to glare at him. "And I'll personally rip off the nuts of anyone who tries to further alienate the host and guardian of our village's most powerful defense."

Kakashi's smile would have showed his teeth if not for his mask. "As you command, Hokage-sama," he said, for once without any hint of irony. It was a shame they hadn't gotten Tsunade back sooner, really.

He just had to get his students through the exam, and they could start setting things a little back to rights.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Chuunin Exam seems to be a lot easier this time around.

"So why do we only have big exams for chuunin? I mean, the genin exam is just, like, the finals at the academy, and I don't even know how you get to be jounin, why aren't those like this too?"

Kakashi thought just a little wistfully of the days when a really brisk pace meant Naruto didn't have the breath to chatter. These days, even a good, hard run across sand and through canyons wouldn't do it. "A public exam for genin would be boring for everyone. Except, possibly, the students, and they should be keeping their minds on their work anyway. As for jounin promotions, no sane village would be willing to show those kind of advanced techniques openly. Chuunin is the only level that's interesting and useful to watch without giving too much away." He paused and eyed his students, and finally added, "Normal chuunin, anyway."

"Oh." A breath of silence and then, "So, Gaara will be there, right? I want to see him again!"

"After the exams, you might be able to see him privately," Kakashi allowed.

Naruto nearly tripped. "Wait, huh? Why can't I see him? We're friends!"

Sakura swung closer for a moment and fetched him a smack on the shoulder. "He's the Kazekage, now, Naruto, and he's the host of the exams this season. You don't want anyone thinking that he favored Leaf, do you?"

Naruto rubbed his shoulder, frowning. "But he _does_ favor us," he objected. "I mean, we're allies right?"

Sometimes, Kakashi thought with a hidden smile, Naruto's simplicity really did see right to the heart. "We are," he agreed, as Sakura sputtered over how to explain hidden village politics to her teammate. "And that's exactly why the Kazekage can't be seen to do anything special for us during the exams. Some of the other villages will already assume he would, and will be looking for signs they can use to discredit Sand. The host must appear to be neutral, just like the examinees must appear not to be cheating on the first part." As Naruto frowned deeper in puzzlement, he tried, "You don't want anyone thinking you passed because of favoritism, either, do you?"

If they hadn't been running, he was sure Naruto would have crossed his arms. "Of course not! I'll pass all on my own!"

Sasuke, running silent and efficiently beside Naruto, rolled his eyes, but Kakashi saw the corner of his mouth twitch up.

"Well, at least we missed the round held in Hidden Rain," Sakura put in, diplomatically changing the subject. "Ino said there were people following them around every second they were there. Sand-nin should be a lot nicer to us, I'd think, after the Hokage's policy of contract-sharing, this year."

"Don't relax too much," Kakashi cautioned them. "Sand is an ally, probably our closest ally right now, but this isn't home. It will be good training for all of you." He paused and his mouth quirked behind his mask. "And don't be surprised if you hear a bit of grumbling over those joint missions."

"Why?" Sasuke finally asked. "It's bringing money back into their village, isn't it? And it's only the contracts coming out of Sand that we share with them, so the other villages shouldn't have anything to complain about."

"The grumble you'll be most likely to hear is about 'babysitting'," Kakashi said dryly, leading them up a striated cliff wall before they could get too deep into what he recalled was a dead-end canyon. "Those missions are where the genin of less experience or ability are getting assigned, these days. It's a good deal for everyone: our genin get some seasoning under Sand chuunin or even jounin, the contract fee is split according to rank so Sand usually gets more of the money, and it takes a little of the pressure off us while we're short-handed. But the fact is, those contracts still come from Wind citizens and even the Wind government, and there's some lingering resentment over that."

After a long, quiet moment, Naruto said, "People can be kind of dumb, you know?"

"A fact of life that any future Kage has to deal with," Kakashi murmured.

He was actually starting to look forward to seeing whether, and how, Naruto would deal with it.

* * *

Naruto crawled through the desert scrub, grinning all over his face. He'd hated the first part of the chuunin exam, last time. A paper test! What kind of ninja needed paper tests? Well, aside from Sakura-chan, because she was just that brilliant. This one, though? This was like being allowed to play the biggest practical joke _ever_.

He spotted the first target in the distance, standing with her back to a stone formation, and paused to think. This test was like an obstacle course that they each had to get through without being spotted, but at the same time they were supposed to be marking each watcher they saw with a special seal-tag. Like paint-bombs, only not as colorful; too bad, really, paint bombs would have been more fun. They'd all been told that something would happen, after each run, to make it clear how many tags they'd been able to place before they finished or got caught, but no one knew what it was, and he'd just have to leave a bunch of tags stuck on behind him to see. After considering all the angles for a minute, he flipped his hands through the summoning seals, bit his thumb, and set his hand down quietly. Gamakichi puffed into being and looked around brightly. "Hey!"

"Shhh," Naruto told him, finger pressed to his lips. "We're sneaking. Here." He held out the tag, blank side up. "Lick this for me, will you?"

Gamakichi sat back on his hind legs and gave him a skeptical look. "You want me to what?"

"I need to stick it on that ninja over there," Naruto explained. "And if I use any ninjutsu that close she'll sense me, I'm not very good at hiding my chakra techniques, and I didn't think to bring any glue, and I told Sakura-chan not to help with this test and Sasuke wouldn't have anyway."

Gamakichi looked between the watcher and Naruto a few times and grinned a toad-grin. "I'll do it, as long as I get to come along."

"Deal," Naruto promised.

Gamakichi spat stickily on the end of the tag and crawled onto Naruto's shoulder. Naruto eeled along the sand and scrub, freezing every time the watcher stirred. Finally, he was close enough to hold up the tag so the end pressed against her vest as she shifted her weight again. Perfect! He crept back into the shadow of the stones and over a shallow hill before he and Gamakichi slapped triumphant palms and he went in search of his next target.

There were twelve in all, and Naruto tagged nine of them. He couldn't figure out a way to reach the other three without using genjutsu or ninjutsu, which, honestly, would just get him spotted anyway, and he figured that getting past everyone unseen counted for more than tagging everyone. At least that's what missions seemed to need, more often. So when he popped up at the end of the course to grin at the judge, he was pretty satisfied. And it was someone he knew, too! "Temari-san, hi!"

"Ah, it's you." She looked him up and down, mouth quirked. "Not bad. I didn't think you'd be any good at sneaking."

Naruto drew himself up, indignant. "I am _really_ good at sneaking! At least when I don't have to use chakra," he added.

She snorted. "Well, let's see how you did on the other part, then."

Gamakichi and Naruto watched with interest as she pulled out a paper tag bigger than the ones he'd used and held two fingers in front of her lips in the initiation seal, whispering a few quick words.

Across the course, nine puffs of smoke rose, virulent blue and pink and orange, followed by some faint cursing.

Naruto stared in delighted disbelief and finally burst into laughter. They'd been paint bombs after all! "That is so cool!"

Temari-san snorted again, tucking away the tag. "You would think so. Honestly," she shook her head, "my brother likes you way too much. I'm hoping you _don't_ become Hokage any time soon, or we'll be screwed at the negotiating table."

He gave her a wounded look. "I wouldn't do that, Temari-san." And then he blinked. "Hey, hey, wait a minute. You mean... the smoke was Gaara's idea?"

She crossed her arms and gave him an exasperated glare of the kind he was way more used to getting from his own teachers than foreign shinobi. He figured that was a yes. He also felt like his grin might spit his face in two. Temari-san sighed and waved a hand at him.

"Go on, then. Shoo. Find your teammates, all three of you passed, congratulations." Her lips twitched unwillingly as she looked out at the clearing, multi-colored smoke. "I guess we owe you this much, at least."

Naruto caught her hand for a moment. "I'm really glad, Temari-san," he told her. And then, before she could stop starting at him with wide eyes and smack him with that gigantic fan of hers or something, he dashed past her to find Sakura and Sasuke.

One down!

* * *

"The second part is a simulation of a nighttime raid," a tall Sand-nin explained to all the first round survivors. "Your objective is at the center of the test area; you are required to get in, find the scroll that matches the chakra imprint of the one given to your team, and get back to your starting point. The objective will be guarded by chuunin of at least two years seniority. If you encounter other teams, you may ignore them, assist them, or hinder them."

The three of them looked at each other. Naruto was grinning like the idiot he usually was, and even Sakura looked like she was trying not to laugh. Sasuke snorted and voiced the thought for all of them. "Easy win."

They re-sorted their gear quickly: a handful of Sakura's concealing seal-tags stuffed into Naruto's pouches, far more subtle than anything he could do with his own genjutsu; one more of Sasuke's chakra-sharpened kunai into Sakura's thigh holster, her extra edge in hand-to-hand with any guards; a few extra packets of Naruto's chakra-free chemical experiments, explosives, hallucinogens, sleeping powder, slipped into Sasuke's arm wrap. When the examiner at the gate let them in they slipped through, Sasuke on point with his Sharingan activated, Sakura behind his shoulder, Naruto at the rear to guard their flanks. It was comfortable and familiar, and Sasuke felt none of the tension he had during their last exam--only the cool crinkle down his nerves, familiar from this past year of missions.

He didn't like to admit it, but perhaps sending them to the last exams to fail had been the best thing Kakashi-sensei could do for them. They wouldn't be where they were now without the furious determination to overcome that failure to push them forward. It was a familiar motivation for him, especially, worn smooth and hard in the years since the massacre.

The thought flickered through his mind, that Naruto and his idiot insistence, Sakura and her calculated plans, pushed him further than thoughts of Itachi alone ever had. He caught the thought and stuffed it away for later. A mission wasn't the time to think, not about that.

The test area here was completely unlike the Forest of Death. It was a range of shallow dunes and hills around a craggy plateau. Their target was at the top. It was a good location, defensible, with clear lines of sight even with night falling. Around them, the other teams flickered through the dusk and vanished into the folds of the land--vanished from normal sight, at least. Sasuke watched their paths and led his own team down into a dry wash that wound a little away from the plateau, avoiding the obvious approaches most of the others had chosen.

The observation he had been trained to while using the Sharingan noted down all the signs that surrounded him, relevant and not, waiting for the clues that would let him sort between the two. Sakura was silent and sure on the patches of sand, a bare breath of chakra whispering about her feet, maybe not even noticeable to him if he hadn't known her so well. Naruto moved at a crouch on the softer footing, almost as silent using his hands to steady him; his chakra burned and sang through the night, but somehow it fit in with this bare land the same way it did into a forest of their own country. The night air was growing cold fast, cold like he'd never felt even on their mission north into the Lightning Country. Sakura was starting to shiver.

That needed action. He fought a brief struggle with himself over the obvious answer, but Sakura was part of his team, and they were damn well going to win this year, and there was no one to object any more. He stopped and beckoned her closer. "Watch," he mouthed silently, not trusting even a whisper in this open land and still air, and held out his hands. As she watched intently, he shaped the seals for Inner Fire and laid one suddenly-warm hand on her bare arm. Her eyes widened in the starlight. She followed his seals slowly, and he only had to correct her once before he saw her chakra settle into a new form and she straightened, shivers subsiding. He nodded and would have turned back to their path except for her hand on his arm in turn. "Thank you," she mouthed, eyes steady.

He told himself she couldn't know it was a clan secret and was just glad to be warm. He would be too, if he was that thin. He nodded briskly and looked for Naruto. Naruto slid down from where he'd been standing, still and on guard, a little up the slope from them. He grinned and clapped Sasuke's shoulder in passing as he fell back into his position. It was in passing, so Sasuke didn't have to figure out what to do about it, which was a relief right now.

They slipped through the night, quick and steady, avoiding the one team to cross their path--one of the three from Hidden Rain. One of them was actually complaining out loud about the dryness of the air. Sasuke and his teammates looked at each other with mutual disbelief and went around. That lot would probably eliminate themselves without any help.

The steep sides of the plateau were trapped all the way up. The best handholds were mined with contact-explosives and the whole face was seeded with more explosives triggered by chakra. Naruto shrugged when Sasuke finished tallying everything he could see. "Me first, then," he whispered, and slung his rope coil firmly around his waist. Sasuke and Sakura took cover under some of the dusty brush at the foot and waited.

"Why can't he act serious more often," Sasuke muttered, exasperated, as he watched Naruto scramble up the cliff from one precarious hold to another, making it look easy. It was absolutely infuriating to have a competent rival one moment and a loud-mouthed, eye-blinding idiot the next. The problem hadn't gotten better in the past year, no matter how often he pointed out that a bright orange, attack yelling ninja was just plain not a proper ninja.

"At least we got him to wear decently dark pants lately?" Sakura offered comfortingly, eyes dancing even in the moonlight.

"The jacket is still orange enough for three," Sasuke grumbled, and he was pretty sure she was stifling a laugh at him. Her chakra looked that way. He was _completely right_ about Naruto's damn jacket. Sometimes he wondered whether Sakura teasing him was really any better than her mooning over him had been.

The climb up, once Naruto let down the rope, went quickly. The creep past the outer guards went more slowly, but one of the Sand teams had made it ahead of them and gotten overconfident. The scuffle when they were discovered covered Sasuke's team's dash to the wall. "Split up to get in, meet in that room," Sakura mouthed, pointing to one of the windows above them. Sasuke nodded and ghosted down the wall toward a tower while Naruto fished out two of Sakura's illusion seals. Sasuke climbed, planted some explosive tags on the level where his team would meet and, when they went off, slipped through the window two levels up. The guard who had stayed at his post was distracted enough for sleep powder to take care of, and when found would concentrate attention on the wrong floor. He came down the far staircase and met the other two in Sakura's chosen room. Naruto was snickering over the brief chaos down the hall. Sasuke had thought that would probably amuse him. Not that that had been part of his calculations, of course.

Sakura gave both of them an admonishing head shake and nudged Sasuke back on point. The path through to the "treasury room" was almost insultingly easy. Sasuke found himself thinking that this couldn't possibly be more than a C-rank mission and then had to remind himself that it was _supposed_ to be. The guards on the "treasury" were already knocked out, and inside they came face to face with another Sand team, older than the ones who were caught outside. Sasuke tensed as they whipped around, one huge shuriken and paired knives ready and poised while the third member kept sorting scrolls in an alarmingly disciplined way. Sakura stepped out to the side, giving them all weapons clearance, and showed open hands. "I propose we not interfere with each other," she said, low. "It would take time and might attract attention if we fought here. We'll both do better, at this point, to ignore each other for now and start back while the other teams are starting to distract the guards."

There was a flash of yellow by the dark-haired woman sorting scrolls and she whispered. "Got it." She stood and cast an assessing eye over them. Sasuke thought she was noticing their lack of any injuries. Finally she nodded to her teammates, who relaxed. "She's right. No sense maybe getting injured when we already have our objective and are first getting out. Let's go." She nodded to Sakura, who waved Sasuke and Naruto to one side with her. Sasuke was just as glad; the sharpness of the woman's gaze reminded him uncomfortably of Mitarashi.

He'd gone to visit Mitarashi, before they left. He still wasn't entirely sure why; he certainly didn't like her personally, she reminded him way too much of Naruto. Only a lot more crazed. He'd lay money down that she'd spent time in ANBU, if she wasn't in still. He'd just felt like he needed to see her, was all. She, for her part, had insulted his ninjutsu abilities, challenged him to a sparring match, and dragged him along to the dango shop once she'd finished wiping the thirty-seventh practice ground with him. He'd put the whole experience down, in his own mind, as good preparation for this exam and tried not to think about the things she'd yelled at him while fighting, about recognizing a mindfuck when he saw it and getting his head out of his ass. He was doing perfectly fine, and when his team passed handily everyone would know it.

As soon as the other team was out of the room, Sakura pulled out their own scroll and dove for the heap in the middle of the room. "Watch my back."

It seemed to take longer than three minutes, but Sasuke was familiar with that effect and counted his heartbeats as he and Naruto flanked the door, one looking out and one in just in case any traps activated. Finally there was a flash of red light and Sakura was beside them again with two scrolls in hand. "Let's go."

It actually took longer getting out, because the other teams were arriving and the halls were more full of fighting as some were discovered, but they weren't seen, they didn't trip any traps, and soon they were back into the cold night air at the bottom of the cliff, looking at each other a little blankly.

"Is it supposed to be that easy?" Naruto wondered.

Sakura laughed softly. "Well, like I've said before. We _are_ a really strong team."

The satisfaction gleaming in her smile was a reflection of Sasuke's own.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the exam tournament gives everyone a chance to grow a little and tie up some loose ends.

Sakura sat in the candidates' balcony of the large, enclosed, Sand arena and waited for the next individual match to be announced and tried to calm herself down by mentally reviewing the profiles of her possible opponents. Gai-san's team had taken this season's exam, and included Hyuuga Neji, who seemed to have waited out the whole year to take the exam again with his teammates. She'd be in trouble against Neji, since she didn't dare close with him and his field of vision made it almost impossible to hit him from a distance with her speed. The rest of that team, she thought she could handle. Two of the Sand teams had made it to the final part too, and one from Rain. Out of those teams, there were two people she thought she'd really have trouble with: the brown-haired woman from the team they'd met at the middle of the second round, and a thin red-haired boy from Hidden Rain. He had some kind of bloodline talent she'd caught a glimpse of on their way out of the fortress; she'd seen him _dissolve_ and a sword pass through him, and then the red mist where he'd been reformed and he'd casually knocked the chuunin guard unconscious. She could think of ways to deal with that, but most of them depended on resources the arena didn't have handy.

As for the woman... Sakura had a feeling she was what Sakura might be in another handful of years. And wasn't yet.

Lee had already won against one of the other Rain genin, punching right through the other boy's water barriers. Two Sand-nin from different teams had fought each other nearly to a standstill, blades against a taijutsu style Sakura had never seen before, heavy on ferocious kicks. Tenten had had a hard time, at first, against her opponent's illusions, but had eventually overwhelmed him with a downright rain of lethal weaponry which had done Sakura's heart good to watch. Her teammates, she thought wryly, had given her a taste for overkill. The dark-haired Sand woman had just finished wiping the arena with the third of the Rain team, whose wind-driven shuriken had been no match for her absolute precision and control with body replacement and wire-guided weapons. She'd won using only a technique of the very lowest level and she'd made it look easy. Sakura _really_ hoped they were in different matches for the next round.

And, if only, please, she didn't have to face her own team...

"Next match! Haruno Sakura against Raisu Kurosuke!"

The red-haired Rain genin bounced to his feet and trotted toward the stairs down to the arena.

Sakura stood very still for a moment, ruefully reflecting on the old advice to be careful what you wished for. But only a moment before her mind started ticking down the things she'd already thought about this opponent and presented a conclusion. _Can't cut, need to enclose; not wind, not earth, need water or fire; can't create enough water to enclose or enough fire to ensure an effect; therefore..._ She turned briskly to Naruto. "Can I borrow your jacket? I promise I'll have it cleaned really well after."

Naruto looked mournfully at his bright orange sleeve before sighing and tugging the jacket off. "Sure, Sakura-chan."

She stuffed her arms into the sleeves as she hurried down the stairs.

Her opponent squinted at her as she came out onto the sand. "Doesn't that clash a little?"

Sakura's face turned hot; all right, so orange didn't exactly go with red or pink. She could just imagine what Ino would say. "This is a match, not a fashion show," she snapped.

The examiner's mouth was twitching as he tried to keep a straight face. "Begin!"

Sakura threw a kunai straight for Raisu's center of mass and snapped the jacket off her shoulders. As he smirked and dissolved into that cloud of red mist she remembered she sprinted in close and swiped her extremely improvised net through the mist.

Or she would have except that the mist dodged, flying apart wildly. It took nearly thirty seconds for Raisu to come back together, well out of arm's reach. Or jacket's reach. "You're good," he said, eyes narrowed. "Okay, we do this the hard way, then." He stalked toward her, solid all the way.

Sakura smiled tightly and tied the jacket around her waist to keep it handy.

He wasn't any faster than her, she decided after a few exchanges, but he didn't seem to notice shallow cuts; more disturbing, she couldn't see that they were bleeding, which hers certainly were. She used chakra to give her feet more grip on the shifting sand and slapped an explosive seal onto his arm, spinning away with only a scratch. Raisu cursed and dissolved again, mist flying apart with the explosion. It took him almost a minute to come back this time, and he was panting.

Sakura's eyes narrowed in satisfaction and she flicked out a handful of tags, slapping a few onto her shuriken.

Raisu was trying to keep the distance open, now, and he had better aim than she did, but he didn't seem to have the chakra control to raise his traction. Her arms were getting badly cut up but twice more she got an explosive tag close enough to make him dissolve, and each time he took longer to return. She was getting noticeably light-headed from blood loss, but she calculated that he would run out of strength first.

After the third note, he returned only to collapse to the sand on all fours and gasp, "Surrender..."

"Winner is Haruno Sakura!" the examiner announced, appearing beside them. "Do you require medical attention?" he asked Raisu more conversationally.

Raisu shook his head. "Just... rest," he said raggedly.

The examiner hauled him up by an arm over his shoulder and off toward the stairs. It took Sakura a moment to follow them.

She'd won.

She collapsed beside her teammates and tugged off the jacket to hand back to Naruto. "Thanks," she sighed. "That was just the thing." She let her head fall against the bench back.

She could hear the Rain jounin scolding Raisu. "I told you you needed to work more on techniques that don't rely on your bloodline. Ninjutsu practice first thing, when we get home."

"Good job, Sakura-chan!" Naruto enthused, bouncing a little beside her. He fished a water bottle out of his pack and pressed it into her hand.

"Good thinking," Sasuke said, more quietly, tugging on her shoulder to make her sit up so he could bandage her arm.

She drank and listened to the sounds of Neji demolishing one of the Sand genin, and couldn't stop smiling.

She wasn't smiling three matches later, when the second match of the second round came up as her against Fuunotora Chie. Who turned out to be the brown-haired woman. "Shit," she muttered, hands checking her kunai and seal tags uncertainly as she stood.

"Just remember what I told you," Kakashi-sensei murmured from behind his book, lounging on the bench behind theirs.

"What, that reading porn helps a person relax?" she snapped, sharp with nervousness. Kakashi's eye crinkled up.

"That too, but I meant the part about finishing what you start."

Sakura blinked, remembering a training session almost a year ago, after that mission with the bandit troupe. Kakashi-sensei had set Naruto and Sasuke to practicing defense with each other. Her, though, he'd set a different exercise: to punch into his palm, full force.

She'd thought she'd been doing all right until he'd made her slow down, move through every part of the strike until she stopped with her fist against his hand. "Now finish it," he'd said. "You aren't done with the blow yet; finish it."

So she'd shoved a little more and realized that she'd never released her shoulder, hadn't completed the shift in her stance, hadn't, more importantly, completed the shift in her chakra. When she had, she'd felt a kind of openness she wasn't familiar with in her taijutsu workouts—but did know from ninjutsu training, when she completed a set of hand seals and released a technique. Kakashi had smiled. "Yes. Like that. Do it again."

For the first time, that day, she had broken a sparring post without chakra-armoring her fist first.

Sakura took a breath and let it out. All the way out. And then she nodded to her teacher and walked calmly down the stairs.

Fuunotora smiled at her faintly as they took their places on the sand. "It seems we've come around to our fight after all."

Sakura bowed a little, silently, as the examiner called "Begin!"

Fuunotora's hands flashed through seals and the sand at their feet twisted into a rope, whipping toward Sakura's knees. The familiar tension of a fight quickened her thoughts, her eyes, her calculations. A chakra rope, she decided as she swapped herself for a stone behind Fuunotora, but taking form from the element around them rather than only Fuunotora's chakra. Perhaps Fuunotora didn't have chakra to spend creating a lot of some element either. All right, then. She wove her hands as quickly as she could through the seals for Dragon Burst; perhaps she couldn't generate enough water to enclose Raisu, but she could make this sand a lot heavier. A layer of water fell over them and the rope singing around toward her slowed considerably; enough to dodge easily. Fuunotora dropped the technique and and they were both still for a moment, watching each other measuringly.

This time it was Sakura who attacked, feeding enough chakra to her feet to speed and steady her as she lunged in, kunai poised to slash. Fuunotora sprang over the line of her attack and tossed a seal onto the ground. The sand flashed startlingly hot under Sakura's feet and steam hissed up all around them, turning Fuunotora into a shadow as she landed again.

Sakura didn't often indulge in appreciating an opponent's skill; in fact, she'd previously considered that a symptom of testosterone poisoning. But now she found herself grinning as her thoughts flashed faster and her hands came together in the Ram. Fuunotora fought with her brains, and _that_ Sakura could appreciate.

Her sense of chakra bloomed outward, brushing against a sleek, poised coolness sliding up behind her shoulder, just slow enough to leave the mist undisturbed. Sakura dove for the sand, catching back a hiss at the lingering heat against her palm as she scythed a leg toward Fuunotora's shins. Her shoe brushed fabric as Fuunotora dodged, and then she was twisting hard to evade the pattern of kunai coming toward her. Speed, her mind noted calmly, was almost equal, slightly in Fuunotora's favor.

By the time they both regained their stances, the mist was fading, sucked away by the thirsty air and sand. They stilled, watching each other again, calculating, and Sakura felt a thrill of exhilaration as their hands came together in perfect unison, seal on seal, shaping illusion. She almost laughed as they completed it together, even though she knew her opponent was not, now, where Sakura's eyes said she was.

The reverse was also true, after all. It would be a battle of skill against skill, to see who could control her chakra most finely, shape the illusion most unpredictably. "Right!" Sakura said, eyes gleaming, and was answered by a tiny smile from Fuunotora.

They stalked each other through the rough stone columns and sand, attack after attack, kunai and seal tags and delicate ninjutsu traps of quicksand or concentrated light, each trying to bracket where the other really was. Sakura's breath was coming quick and her skin was tingling with awareness. She shaped a gust of wind to discharge _towards_ her, and yes! there was a break, a swirl of air that nothing she could see should have caused, there, her opponent was _there_!

Her spear-hand met only emptiness, though, and understanding hit her mind like a hammer—it had been a counter-trap. She twisted, grabbing a shuriken since she was out of kunai, trying to regain her stance, trying to turn and meet what had to be coming...

Hands found her shoulders and blackness swept over her.

She came up out of the black slowly, muscles gradually feeling less leaden and more like they belonged to her, enough so, eventually, for her to lift a hand and rub her eyes open.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto practically pounced on her. "You're awake, are you okay?"

Sakura propped herself up on an elbow; she was lying on one of the benches at the rear of the balcony, with Naruto's jacket folded under her head. "Yeah," she mumbled. "Think so." She sat up a little gingerly, but everything still seemed attached and working.

And Fuunotora was standing at the foot of the bench, with a fresh bandage across her shoulder.

"You came very close to winning that one; you're fast and strong, as well as smart. You'll be very good, if you keep going," she said, dark eyes level. Sakura snorted, hearing the question buried in that cool statement. Considering how many kunoichi retired once they had kids, she supposed the question wasn't entirely unjustified. Still.

"Of course I'm going to keep going. This is my work." She smiled a bit wryly and waved a hand at Naruto, and Sasuke who was lurking behind him. "And this is my team, and I'm not leaving them." Naruto beamed, and Sasuke looked away only to glance back at her, hidden and sidelong, and she sat back, satisfied.

Fuunotora was smiling too, faint and pleased. "Good."

Okay, maybe the boys had a point about appreciating a good opponent.

"So did I miss any matches?" Sakura asked Naruto, as Fuunotora moved off to rejoin her own team at the balcony rail.

"You missed Neji and Lee, because that went kind of fast. Lee said that his honor demanded he fight Neji with everything he had, and he started opening up that Eight Gates move of his, and Neji got _really_ pissed off at him and shut down his whole chakra system, one, two, three!" Naruto paused, thoughtfully. "Or one through sixty-four, I guess. And then he bawled Lee out for being an idiot and never thinking ahead, and said he should have used his taijutsu to break Neji's footing, and they were going to train until Lee got it right if it killed him. And then Gai-sensei got all weepy about his students' passionate teamwork, and he and Lee started coming up with how many times they were going to run around Suna backward, and Neji walked off in a huff."

Sakura could totally see why and decided, not for the first time, that Kakashi wasn't actually the most infuriating teacher they might have gotten.

"So now we're just waiting on the last match to be announced," Naruto finished, cheerfully.

Sakura nodded, but there was something nagging at the back of her mind. Tenten had fought the Sand genin with the taijutsu in the first match of round two. Then it had been her and Fuunotora. Then, apparently, Lee and Neji. That only left...

"Next match!" the examiner called. "Uzumaki Naruto versus Uchiha Sasuke!"

Sakura's breath stopped as Naruto and Sasuke nodded, unsurprised, and made for the stairs. Memory fell on her like a collapsing wall, her horror and hideous feeling of helplessness as her teammates launched killing techniques at each other and didn't even hear her when she tried to stop them. The smooth stone balcony under her feet was the hospital roof, the tension of the exam's final part was the fear in the wake of the invasion and discovery of Uchiha Itachi in their very village. She stumbled to her feet and up to the rail, clutching it like a life-line.

Naruto and Sasuke walked out into the arena, facing each other, and Sakura's hands clenched, white knuckled. Not again. Not again. They couldn't do this again.

Naruto produced two Shadow Clones and held out a hand in what was recognizably the start of Rasengan... and didn't move.

Sasuke stared for a moment and then actually clapped a hand over his face in what Sakura had no trouble seeing was utter disbelief; Sasuke had always had trouble believing it when Naruto acted like himself yet again. Sakura felt her chest relaxing and her breath starting to even out again.

"You are _such_ an _idiot_! When you have an advantage you _use_ it, you don't just stand around waiting!" Sasuke yelled, incensed.

"That wouldn't do what it needs to do, though," Naruto argued. "We didn't do it right, last time. This time we'll do it right, and it will work."

"What will work?" Sasuke asked, sounding a little lost though Sakura would bet he was trying to sound exasperated. She'd never been sure if he understood just how transparent that pretense had become, this year.

Naruto waved his arms so that his own clones had to duck, most definitely exasperated. "Last time we fought was all wrong! It was like you thought I was _him_ or something! Of course it didn't work! But I'm not him, I'm me, and you're you, and this time we'll do it right." He held out his hand again, chin up, giving Sasuke a challenging grin. "Come on. This time it will work."

Sasuke stood staring at him for a long breath, and Sakura hoped, hand pressed to her lips, that no one else watching knew enough about them to understand what Naruto had just said. How much of his heart he'd just held out to Sasuke, open handed, daring Sasuke to match him. Daring Sasuke to fight him all out, not as enemies but as friends. _Boys,_ she thought, blinking back the prickle of water in her eyes. Finally Sasuke huffed out half of a laugh and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Yeah, fine." He set his feet and held down his own hand in the stance for Chidori, and suddenly the arena was ringing with the fierce surge of their chakra.

Chidori and Rasengan met in the middle of the arena and the air tore apart, and for one suspended moment the two concentrations of chakra strained against each other. And then the moment broke and both techniques slipped and careened into the arena walls.

"Are your teammates always this... vigorous?" Fuunotora asked, clutching the rail as the whole balcony shook.

"Pretty much, yeah," Sakura admitted, mouth quirked. Down in the arena, Naruto and Sasuke were standing, locked hand to hand still. She thought Sasuke might just have smiled, just a little, before he blew fire right into Naruto's face. Naruto yelped and rolled over the sand with no sense of control or dignity that Sakura could see, only to come up grinning and produce dozens on dozens of Shadow Clones. Sasuke's eyes narrowed, and then he was weaving through the Narutos, spinning and sliding aside from each attack like a leaf on the wind, bursting one after another of them. It was a beautiful bit of work, right up until the end when he abandoned elegance and dove on the real Naruto and put him in a head lock. She couldn't swear to it, but she thought he might have been giving Naruto a noogie when Naruto eeled around and threw Sasuke over his head.

Sakura buried her face in her hands and laughed, helplessly, feeling herself trembling in the wake of relief, of release of the fear she hadn't realized she'd been holding onto this long and this hard.

"Something very bad happened between them, didn't it?" Fuunotora asked, from beside her, voice neutral.

Sakura took a few breaths to make her voice come out mostly steady. "I guess both Sand and Leaf know how that goes." And truly, Sasuke's crazed brooding last year had reminded Sakura more of Gaara than she really wanted to think too hard about. Watching a fellow shinobi lose himself was terrifying, and she'd come out of those mad months with far more sympathy for Temari and Kankurou. For Sand in general, really.

After a moment of silence, Fuunotora said, softer, almost inaudible over the crashes and explosions out in the arena, "I see."

Out on the sand, Naruto and Sasuke were doing their best to beat each other into pulp, but only in the way she saw them do at least once a week. The arena was pitted with craters and littered with kunai and shards of rock by the time they paused, both of them panting for breath.

"Gotta work on that endurance training some more," Naruto taunted.

Sasuke managed a snort. "And you need to work on that intelligence training some more." He hauled himself upright and threw a fistful of kunai, which Naruto nimbly ducked, dancing aside from the trailing wires.

"Dragon Fire?" he scoffed. "I can blow that away." He shaped the Rasengan again, fast and smooth Sakura had to admit, and stood cockily among the wires, waiting.

Sasuke's mouth quirked just faintly. "Let's see."

"Oh boy," Sakura murmured. She knew that expression.

And, indeed, instead of fire, it was the crackling brightness of lightning that grew in Sasuke's hand. And for one, critical, moment, Naruto stood still, surprised.

He'd barely gotten out half of his howl of protest before lightning flashed down the wires and grounded into him with a brilliant flash and smell of scorching.

Too experienced with Naruto to leave anything to chance, Sasuke pounced on him and held a kunai to his throat. "Surrender."

"Bastard," Naruto groaned, smoking. "Yeah, yeah, okay fine."

"He's still conscious after that?" Fuunotora asked, startled.

"That's Naruto." Sakura told her wryly, getting up. "If this were just their own training match, they'd go another round after this." She hurried to the top of the stairs to meet them as Sasuke hauled Naruto briskly up.

"That was so cheating," Naruto was arguing.

"We're ninja, you idiot," Sasuke told him, disgusted, "there's no such thing."

Naruto pouted at him and Sakura rolled her eyes as she helped him over to a seat.

"Actually," Kakashi-sensei put in, turning a page of his book, "both of you need to work on distance attacks. If you can adapt Rasengan and Chidori, that's a good start."

"Huh." Naruto looked thoughtful. "Wonder if I could throw it..."

"Next match!" the examiner announced. "Hyuuga Neji against Uchiha Sasuke!"

Sasuke looked down at Naruto for a long moment and finally said, "Guess training against you is useful after all." He turned and stalked back down the stairs, leaving Naruto to make faces at his back.

"Such a jerk," Naruto muttered, but Sakura could hear the downright affection in the insult.

Facing a Hyuuga, Sasuke fell back on his fire techniques as Neji pursued him around the arena. Sakura sighed a little, resigned to the fact that Sasuke never _would_ think to use small traps to mire an opponent's feet in this kind of situation; she supposed she was lucky he was remembering to use wires to tangle Neji long enough for some of the flame strikes to get through.

"He's gonna turn it around," Naruto said, leaning over the rail beside her, eyes fixed on Sasuke. "You can tell. But how?"

"Heavenly Spin uses a lot of chakra," Sakura said thoughtfully. "Maybe he's trying to wear Neji down before he moves?"

"Oh! Yeah, that makes sense." Naruto grinned fiercely. "Right... about... now!"

Neji sprinted for Sasuke again and this time, after two steps away, Sasuke stopped dead, spun in place down to one knee, and met Neji with one empty hand at guard and a kunai that glowed and crackled.

"Hey!" Sakura sat bolt upright. "I thought he couldn't use Chidori more than three times in a day, still!" She was going to wring Sasuke's neck if he wasn't keeping her up to date on what he could do. Who was the mission strategist, here, after all?

Naruto was snickering. "He only hit me with half strength, you know. I'd have been a lot more fried otherwise." He leaned his chin on his palms, smiling down at the arena.

Neji was down, tremors radiating from where the kunai had sunk in. "I surrender," he growled out.

Sasuke thumped down cross legged on the sand, panting. "Good."

Neji accepted a medic's help up the stairs as the winner was announced, but then waved him off just as Naruto had. "He jarred my inner coils, but I can handle that just fine on my own given a little time. Good timing," he added grudgingly to Sasuke, and limped over to his own team.

Sasuke sat heavily, elbows on his knees, head hanging. Naruto seemed not to notice, demanding, "So, what did you do? How did it work?"

Sakura stifled a laugh at Sasuke's faint groan and took pity on him. "He waited until Neji's chakra was too depleted to repel the lightning chakra, and used the kunai to channel it into Neji's chakra system." Sasuke nodded, and she added, "That was a good improvisation, using the weapon as a channel."

"Got the idea from the wires," Sasuke mumbled, eyes closed.

"Next Match! Fuunotora Chie against Matsumura Souji!"

Down in the arena, Fuunotora and the taijutsu specialist were facing off. After several long moments of staring at each other while the spectators started to shift and rustle, Matsumura lifted both his hands. "I forfeit," he announced in a clear, carrying voice.

"Do you have a reason to offer?" the examiner asked after a startled moment.

"I am familiar with Chie-san's skills. They are greater than mine. I don't believe it's necessary to demonstrate that again." Matsumura nodded politely to the examiner and turned to make his way back up the stairs.

"In that case, I suppose we'll continue straight to the final match," the examiner concluded, brows still raised. "Final match! Fuunotora Chie against Uchiha Sasuke!"

Sakura hissed. "That bastard! He did that on purpose, so Sasuke wouldn't have a chance to rest!"

"A display of good strategy, in the broader view," Kakashi-sensei murmured, infuriatingly calm.

Sasuke heaved a deep breath and stood before Sakura could strangle their teacher. "All right."

"It'll be a lot like fighting me," Sakura told him hastily. "Only worse."

Sasuke's mouth quirked. "Wish me luck, then."

"You're blushing." Naruto nudged her, as Sasuke went back down the stairs.

"Oh, shut up," she muttered, hands over her warm cheeks.

This match was drawn out. Sasuke, vaguely sensible for once, waited for Fuunotora to come to him, Sharingan active to pierce any illusion and track her ninjutsu. Fuunotora worked around the edges of him, opening little pits under his feet to make him shift, setting wire traps he had to use up attention and strength to undo, dodging his fire techniques and kunai alike. In the end it came down to Fuunotora's chakra control, as Sakura had been afraid it would. When Sasuke finally sidestepped into one of her little pit traps to avoid her shuriken, Fuunotora snapped it closed again around his foot with an efficient reversal in a single hand seal and sprinted up behind him to slap her hand against his spine. Sasuke slumped unconscious and Fuunotora let him down to the sand.

"That was what she got you with, at the end," Naruto said. "I, um, kind of freaked out a little when she did it the first time."

Sakura followed his sidelong glance at a slightly scorched patch of stone and elbowed him gently. "Sap."

"Well, how was I supposed to know it was just sleep?" he defended himself, indignant. "I mean, the spine! You can do all sorts of bad shit to someone that way!"

"Winner of the tournament! Fuunotora Chie of the Sand!" the examiner announced.

Naruto made a horrible face and Sakura found herself laughing. "It's a better end than the last exam had," she told him, inarguably. "Come on. Let's get Sasuke up here to sleep it off while they decide who passed."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Naruto learns healing, Sasuke has Jiraiya inflicted upon him, and Sakura gets more dangerous. Humor, Drama, Fluff.

"So," Kakashi said, perching on Tsunade's file cabinet despite Shizune's blistering glare as she tried to put away the promotion files. After a year of dealing with him, Tsunade was positive that he did annoying things like that just to be annoying. Which was, well, annoying. She already had Jiraiya to stir things up, and he sure as hell didn't need an understudy. What she hadn't figured out, yet, was how to stop him. She was sure something appropriate would come to her in time, though.

"So, what?" she asked, just a bit suspicious.

"So, what are we going to do with my team now?" he asked, in an obnoxiously reasonable tone. "They've all three been promoted; Konoha had a good showing at the exam this year. Normally, I'd suggest you keep them together as a high-level team, given how well they already work together. But I'm sure you saw what happened during the exam."

Tsunade leaned back in her chair, frowning. She certainly had. "He drew hard on the fox's power when he thought Sakura might have been hit with something fatal. It's definitely triggered by protectiveness, right now." Her mouth curled. "Temari, the Kazekage's sister, was up in the box with us and she had a seal out and ready like that." She snapped her fingers. "She'd have used it, too, if Sasuke hadn't sat on Naruto to calm him down. I think Gaara expected something like this might happen."

"I spoke with him, after the exam," Kakashi offered, crossing a foot over his knee. "He offered us copies of Sand's scrolls on the tailed beasts and their hosts, but he didn't have much more training than Naruto."

"Which is undoubtedly why he's had such difficulty controlling that damn tanuki of his." Tsunade sighed. "At this rate we may have to negotiate with one of the villages of the other great nations." And she didn't even want to contemplate what kind of concessions they'd demand in return for training someone else's host, but something had to be done and done soon.

"You know," Kakashi said, slowly, "I've looked through the scrolls myself. The one thing that's repeated over and over is that a host has to know himself, know his own chakra, and be able to manipulate both his and the beast's chakra very finely."

Tsunade considered that, and then considered Naruto, and groaned. "We're doomed."

"Maybe not." Kakashi laced his hands over his knee as he shifted it out of Shizune's way just in time to dodge her irritated swat. "I've been thinking. The ninja who learn to know and control chakra the most finely are generally the medics, aren't they?"

Tsunade blinked. "I... suppose that's true, yes." And then she frowned and held up a hand. "Wait just a minute. Are you suggesting that we train _Naruto_ as a _medic_?"

"It seems like the best way to achieve what he needs without having to go to Hidden Cloud or Hidden Rock. Or worse, Hidden Mist."

Tsunade settled back in her chair, reaching for the kunai weighing down some files to turn it absently through her fingers as she thought. "I suppose it might work," she murmured doubtfully, "but who could possibly handle him during that kind of..." She trailed off and directed an extremely suspicious look at Kakashi. He spread his hands, eye crinkling up all smiley. "You bastard," she growled. "You _planned_ on this! You scheming, evil-eyed _shit_! You—"

It took her a solid minute and a half to run out of names to call him. The stark understanding that no one else _could_ teach Naruto a healer's arts, and deal with the kind of screw-ups his power might produce, drove her to dredge up words she hadn't used since the last time she'd been up north of Earth Country's in the winter.

"You already like him, though," Kakashi positively wheedled when she finally ran down. "And it would definitely reassure the village to see the Nine-tails' host learning healing."

She threw the kunai at him, dead center, and snarled when he evaded it. Shizune caught it on the rebound and put it silently back on top of its stack of paperwork. "Okay," Tsunade growled, after a long, furious glare during which she tried and failed to think of any other possible teacher. "Okay, fine. I'll do it. That kid is the only thing that can drag me into this kind of insanity, and it will serve him right when he gets to be Hokage and has to deal with it all himself!" She sat back, glowering at him. "All right, if Naruto is staying here to be trained, what about his team?"

"They'll all set up a howl if two go out without their third," Kakashi noted dryly. "So they all need to be reassigned for a little bit. It isn't entirely uncommon for the year after promotion to be a time for advanced training. I thought Sakura might enjoy a stint with Intelligence; it's suited to her skills."

Tsunade looked at him narrowly. "True enough. That only leaves the other problem child. We've kept those three together for Sasuke's sake this long; what can we do now to keep him from backsliding?"

"Well," Kakashi murmured, examining his nails. "I thought we might make use of Sasuke's competitive streak. If we give him a teacher equal to Naruto's, and one who has a character similar to Naruto's, I think that should keep him progressing nicely."

Tsunade stared at him, eyes widening as those specifications sank in. "Equal to...? _Similar_ to...?" Finally she couldn't help herself any more, and burst out laughing until she had to hold her stomach and Shizune finally broke and demanded to know what the joke was.

* * *

"Myouboku Mountain's Monk of the Toad Spirits... also known as the Toad Sage.... is here!" A long white tail of hair flounced and wood geta managed to hit the dust with a firm clack.

"You're what," Sasuke said, very flatly. It wasn't even a question. There was no possible question in the world to which _that_ was the answer.

Sakura's eyes were the size of saucers and the Hokage had a hand over her face. Naruto, on the other hand, was hanging over someone's front gate laughing like a hyena. Sasuke gave serious thought to setting his butt on fire with a Fire Blossom.

"I know he doesn't look it," Tsunade sighed, "but this idiot really is my old teammate. Jiraiya, meet Uchiha Sasuke. Sasuke, meet the Toad Idiot."

"You're so cruel, Tsunade," the old man actually pouted. And they expected Sasuke to walk around being seen in _public_ with this guy?

Naruto finally caught his breath a little. "No, no, he's actually really good. He's the one who taught me the Rasengan! I bet you have lots of fun traveling with him."

"I'm not sure I want to be anywhere near someone who teaches things _you_ think are interesting," Sasuke pointed out dryly.

"Hey, it was totally my own idea to do a panty raid on Temari-san," Naruto huffed, crossing his arms. Sasuke contemplated this.

"I think that was my point."

"If it helps, he also taught the Fourth, so he's not actually as useless as he likes to look," Tsunade put in. "And there's the other side of this too." She folded her arms, brows drawing down. "Even after a full year, we're still getting probes from Hidden Sound, and most of them happen when you're in the village. Orochimaru obviously hasn't given up. And if you're not going to have a pathologically overprotective beast host right at hand, who can be counted on to follow right after any kidnapping, setting forests on fire with his chakra as he goes, Jiraiya is the next best thing."

Naruto looked smug until she flicked him over the ear. "That wasn't actually a compliment, brat."

Naruto glowered at her, rubbing his ear, only to perk up a second later. Sasuke would never understand Naruto's mood swings. "Hey, I bet he can teach you summoning!"

Still flustered by Tsunade's remark about overprotectiveness, and the little curl of warmth it had caused, Sasuke crossed his arms. "Uchiha don't use summons."

"You're the last Uchiha, I don't see why you can't do whatever you please and call that what the Uchiha do," Jiraiya said mildly.

Sasuke was struck very still, unprepared for that kind of insight after all the clowning.

Jiraiya rested a hand on his shoulder, dark eyes holding Sasuke's. "Don't limit yourself inside your own mind."

Slowly, Sasuke nodded. Maybe this would work after all.

* * *

 _Sakura,_

 _You have the library handy, maybe you can tell me. Is it possible to request a rescue mission from one's own tutor? I'll pay for it out of my own pocket. We've spent the last week in the red light district of this town. The only ninjutsu practice I'm getting is figuring out how to haul his carcass home from the bars! Yesterday I used Transformation and turned him into a cat long enough to get him home; a neutered cat. The day before that I used a new wind jutsu to roll him along the street. Neither made him stop. I think he's trying to drive me crazy._

 _Sasuke_

Sakura folded the letter away, giggling helplessly. She wondered how long it would take Sasuke to catch on that he was already in training. Another week at least, she wagered with herself; he could have a very one-track mind once he got an idea in his head.

She wondered a little whether even being taught by someone who seemed a lot like Naruto at sixty would be able to shake that.

* * *

Sakura was out in the courtyard of the Intelligence complex, working on advanced concealment techniques with a handful of other newcomers, when an explosion rocked the morning. Everyone looked up with a jerk as smoke billowed out of the top of the administrative center, but Sakura relaxed as an orange blur emerged. She could practically hear the cackling.

"Get back here, you brat!" Tsunade-sama's voice echoed down the block. "That was my favorite coat, you little shit! I'm going to turn everything you own baby pink for a _week_!"

"Oh, Naruto," Sakura sighed, even as her mouth quirked up helplessly. At least he was getting along with his teacher. In fact, she worried just a little sometimes that Tsunade would be a bad influence on him.

"Demon fox, huh?" One of the other newcomers, Shimasu, eyed the way Naruto had gone and shook his head. "Kind of explains a few things, doesn't it? Are we sure that thing can't get out?"

A chill tingle of anger rushed over Sakura and she had to take a moment to unset her jaw and smile at him with complete insincerity. "Oh, there's no need to worry at all. Naruto only draws enough of the Nine-tails' chakra for aspects to emerge when something he truly cares for is threatened." She clasped her hands demurely. "The village did a good job, there, I must say. After the way he's been treated, there's almost nothing here he cares for that way." The last sentence came out edged with ice and Shimasu's head jerked up.

"Who do you think you are?" he demanded, straightening up to loom over her. "I have five years seniority as a chuunin, missy, and..."

 _Enemy_ , the back of Sakura's mind whispered to her, _threat to the team_. Familiar calculation flickered through her thoughts as she eyed Shimasu coolly. She had watched him joking and shoving with some friends. His attacks were strong, but his defense was weak. If it came down to a confrontation, a binding seal would immobilize him for her to get behind him and then she could take her time getting the sensory-blocking technique Fuunotora-san had taught her right, and that should take care of him. And... he was backing away. She'd need to work fast...

"Sakura." Miuhara's hand fell on her shoulder and she blinked up at their trainer. He looked amused and relaxed, but there was a gleam of something else in his pale, sharp eyes. "That's some impressive killing intent, I admit. Work on hiding it."

Right, she wasn't _with_ her team, they weren't in the field anymore, and, um, she probably wasn't supposed to treat another Leaf-nin like an enemy. Even if he kind of was. Only not that way, she told herself firmly, and took a breath, cheeks a little hot. "Yes, Miuhara-san. I'll work on that."

And she would, of course. No sense letting a threat to her team know she was coming.

Naruto wasn't the only one who felt that way.

* * *

 _Hey! Did Gamakichi step on you? I told him to step on you when he delivered this. How's it going with you and the ero-sennin? See, you should have let me teach you Sexy no Jutsu before you left, it's the best way to get his attention._

 _Tsunade-baachan is a slave driver, I think it must be an old-person thing. She makes me sit and MEDITATE for, like, hours, and the fox chakra itches. But I can already do chakra transfer, as long as it isn't for something really fiddly. So? What about you, what can you do? Come on, tell me, or I'll tell Gamakichi to lick you next letter I send!_

 _Naruto_

Sasuke folded the paper up again, neatly, and wondered how Naruto managed to actually hold a conversation in a single letter. He'd complain about Naruto putting words in his mouth, except... he usually got them right.

He tucked the letter safely away in his pack and lay down, firmly ignoring Jiraiya's knowing grin on the other side of the fire. Reacting would just encourage the man. If Sasuke was relieved enough to smile at getting a letter from his teammates, well that wasn't to Jiraiya's credit, was it?

He pulled his pack over to use as a pillow, listening to the soft crackle of paper that all the letters from home made.

* * *

Naruto let the last history scroll roll closed on the words that described too calmly how a band of extremists from Hidden Mist, opposed to both bloodline talents and hosts, had broken through the guards while his mother was giving birth and damaged her seal. "So. That's why people don't like me," he said, low, looking down at the scarred surface of the table in the little, wood-paneled room beside the Hokage's office, where he studied.

"For a long time, now, hosts have been the sacrifices of their villages, one way or another." For once, Tsunade-baachan wasn't yelling. "Konoha has tried to honor ours, but when the Nine-tails escaped and your mother was lost..." she sighed. "I think Sarutobi-sensei made the wrong choice. But some people are idiots, and his journals say that there was a lot of loose talk right after the attack. People saying Kushina-san had failed, or that she should never have tried to have a child since it put the seal in danger. He didn't want them taking that out on you."

Naruto's hands closed into fists. "My mother didn't fail."

Hands closed over his, stronger than any hands had a right to be, strong like the vast voice locked inside him, strong like maybe his mother's would have been, and Tsunade-baachan shook him a little. "Of course she didn't fail! Kushina-san was a hero, a greater hero than her husband! She gave her life to hold and guard Konoha's most dangerous weapon, and I honor her memory."

Naruto sniffed and swallowed. He wasn't crying, he _wasn't_. "How come the hosts don't have a monument, then, huh?"

"Maybe we'll make one." She scruffled up his hair. "Then you'll be on two monuments. One with your mom and one with your dad."

Naruto finally looked up, and if his grin wavered a little Tsunade didn't show she noticed. "So, hey," he said, sturdier, latching on to a much easier question for distraction, "we used to have a lot more beasts, didn't we? Why'd the First give so many away? I mean," he prodded his stomach, frowning at it, "the fox is really, really strong. Wouldn't we have been the strongest village if we'd had more?"

"We might have." Tsunade-baachan sat back in her chair on the other side of the table. "Or we might have scared the villages of the other great nations so much they'd have allied to get rid of us. That's what my grandfather thought, at least. We did get a lot of treaties out of those gifts." Her mouth twisted. "Even if half of them fell apart a generation later."

Naruto jammed his chin into his hands, frowning harder. "When I'm Hokage, I'm going to find a way to make everyone quit fighting like that. Why can't we just have a _match_ , like at the chuunin exams, instead?"

Tsunade sighed. "Because the side whose team lost would want to do it again, with a stronger one, and sooner or later we'd be using whole armies again. That's kind of what a war is, kid. And as soon as people get killed, you have revenge getting into it, and it never ends." She leaned across the table and poked him in the stomach. "You know that already. Look at the way you reach for all of this, the moment you think one of your team is being hurt, or in danger of dying. Like when Sakura went down, during the exams."

Naruto growled, and then jumped, startled. This time, he could really, actually _feel_ the surge of the fox's hot, raw chakra. "...oh."

"Most people don't have a demon beast to draw on," Tsunade-baachan said, raising one brow at him, "but everyone reaches deeper like that when the people they love are hurt. Everyone. Think about that."

Naruto thought about it, and chewed on his lip, and scowled, and finally burst out, "I'll find a way anyway! I don't know how, but there's got to be something to get people to stop!"

He expected the old bat to scoff, but she just smiled. "Maybe you will. Now." She rapped the table and rose. "Time for your meditation exercises."

Naruto groaned pathetically, but she showed no mercy and just pointed at the cushion on one side of the room. Naruto dragged himself over to it with a deep sigh and arranged his hands in the reverse Bird, and listened to the distant growl of the fox inside. One thing he would say, though never to Tsunade-baachan: it was getting easier to tell when the growl was the fox's and when it was his.

Maybe more people just needed to do _this_.

* * *

 _Naruto,_

 _If you don't stop telling that toad of yours to jump on my head with the letters, I'm going to fry him._

 _And no, of course it's not your fault that a surgery you were assisting at failed. Unless, of course, you were actually the one bonding in the new bone and you somehow forgot to mention that part. Quit being an idiot. You're not_ actually _incompetent, at least when you pay attention. And you do that more these days._

 _Stop worrying._

 _Sasuke_

The owner of Ichiraku Ramen set down Naruto's bowl and smiled across the counter. "There, now, that's more like it. You've looked down for days. Cheer up! I made the ramen extra spicy for you!"

Naruto tucked the letter into his jacket and split his chopsticks. "Yeah, sometimes you gotta remember the good stuff in life!" He scooped up his first slurp of noodles with a tiny smile.

* * *

Sasuke had to admit, if only to himself, that Kakashi-sensei had been right. His team could keep him sane. He really missed them, having to deal with Jiraiya day in and day out. Naruto was comfortingly straightforward, by comparison, and he was positive that Sakura would have slapped Jiraiya very satisfyingly at least once a day.

And he wanted to be where Sakura was, getting the run of Intelligence, so badly he could taste it. He wanted access to secured records so he could find out where Itachi had gone, and what he was doing, and how Sasuke could finally kill the man and avenge his family.

Before the man could do it again and kill his... his team. His team, that was all. ( _Family dies. Family betrays._ _Not family._ )

He shook his head sharply to settle his thoughts, and one of his lines of ink went astray.

"Redo that," Jiraiya told him, glancing over. "Summons aren't like ninjutsu; they don't go away until you dismiss them or the summoning seal is disrupted, and even that's chancy. You should have the dismissal right on hand the first time, and formally written as a seal, in case anything goes wrong. Decided what you want to try for, yet?"

"Hawks," Sasuke answered shortly, reaching for a fresh sheet of paper. The thought had come to him about a week ago, watching one circling over the hill they were on. It seemed appropriate to make a contract with another creature of legendary eyesight, after all. Besides, then he'd have his own summons to send letters by.

"Hmm. Sharp-eyed, so single minded they fly into cliffs on the hunt, no sense of humor... I can't imagine why this didn't occur to the Uchiha years ago."

Sasuke considered trying out his new Chidori Senbon on his teacher, but he was pretty sure it wasn't stable enough yet, and he'd just be more annoyed if Jiraiya dodged it. Maybe, he thought as he turned back to his brushwork, a hawk would be willing to pick up one of the damn toads and drop it on Jiraiya's head.

That was a Naruto sort of approach to the problem, but right now he was irritated enough not to mind that.

* * *

 _Sasuke,_

 _It sounds like you're making a lot of progress, even if Jiraiya-sama is aggravating. We've had a bit of a stir, here, and I don't know if Naruto will tell you about it. Someone brought their little girl to the hospital with a broken arm, while he was assisting, and the medic asked him to do the anesthetic for her. I guess the father was really wound up, because he started yelling that no fox demon was going to touch his child. Well, there was the mother of a little boy in to have his tonsils out just in the hall and she started yelling at the father that he was disloyal to Konoha to say something like that about the Fourth's own son. So there the two adults were, howling and screeching at each other, and Naruto in the middle just doing the pain-suppression. I was so proud of him! Well, in the end, the little boy came wandering in and sat down with the little girl, and by the time the parents got done yelling Naruto was spinning tops for both of them on the floor and they'd both stopped crying. I'm told that the father looked very shamefaced when he took his daughter home, as well he should. I honestly think the mother alarmed Naruto more, though; he still doesn't know how to deal with that._

 _I looked in the files, after you mentioned it, but none of them that I could get my hands on had any information about where Itachi is now, or where Akatsuki might be based. There's speculation that it's in Water Country somewhere, but it's all just rumor, nothing substantiated._

 _I did find something else, though. Keep an eye out, okay? When Tsunade-sama said that the Sound-nin keep showing up looking for you, she wasn't joking._

 _Sakura_

Sasuke frowned over Sakura's letter. He hadn't thought Tsunade was joking, exactly, but he hadn't seen the slightest sign of Sound-nin anywhere in the last five months. He was much more interested in those rumors about the Akatsuki base. Maybe Jiraiya would agree to a trip into the Water Country if Sasuke said he'd heard the bars all had gorgeous servers or something.

And Naruto was an idiot. He should have just used the first anesthetic seal on the loud-mouth father, so he could do his work in peace and quiet. There was no excuse for that kind of thing.

Sasuke pulled over a sheet of paper and a pen to explain to Naruto in detail what he should to about that kind of interference next time, eyes glinting.

* * *

"Naruto! Did Tsunade-sama let you go for the day?" Sakura slid onto the bench of the dango shop across from him, pinning a case of papers firmly under her heel. Probably top secret or something, she was getting really into that stuff these days. Naruto pried himself upright from his sprawl across the table with a groan.

"She's a killer. We don't need assassins any more, all we need to do is have her train people. They'll drop dead in a month. She had me transferring chakra all day, in _different proportions_ , if you can believe it, of my chakra and the damn fox's."

Sakura's brows rose. "Naruto, that's a really advanced technique."

He blinked. "It is?" The old bat hadn't told him that. "Huh."

"Well, here, you'll like this, then." Sakura fished an envelope out of her pouch. "Sasuke's latest letter came, and he said to share this one with you."

Naruto straightened up more, reaching for the letter eagerly. It really helped, these days, to hear from Sasuke. Who'd have ever thought, two and a half years ago, when they'd all first met? He blinked at the opening lines and read aloud, bemused.

"May all the spirits of my ancestors look on me with favor and preserve me from this utter asshole. Striking him dead would be favorite; it can't be hard the way he lives. No sooner were the words 'Water Country' out of my mouth than he hauled us off to Wind instead. We're doing laps around the central desert, practicing a different set of elemental techniques with every one. Do you know what they drink out here? Whatever it is, it makes him _sing_."

Naruto had to stop then to put his head down and laugh.

"Have you ever heard Jiraiya-sama sing?" Sakura asked, curious.

"Yes!" Naruto gasped, "that's why I'm laughing!"

Sakura leaned her chin in her hand, grinning. "So, is Sasuke right when he says the donkeys can carry a tune better?"

Naruto wrapped his arms around his stomach, sniggering too hard to answer as he imagined Sasuke's response to Jiraiya's sentimental caterwauling. Sakura just shook her head, smiling, and stole his glass of water for a few sips.

"Well," Sakura said when he finally caught his breath, "at least he should be more satisfied with his actual training, now. And being around Jiraiya-sama seems to be good for him, in a way."

Naruto wiped his eyes and stole back his water. "Yeah, he sounds a lot more human, these days. Less like he has one of those Uchiha fans stuck up his ass."

Sakura mock-glowered at him. "Tsunade-sama has had a very bad influence on your language, Naruto."

Naruto cocked his head, grinning, and waved the letter. "Seems to be a Legendary Three thing, since Sasuke's is getting just as bad." Sakura snorted and Naruto paused. "Um." He fidgeted a minute, looking down at his napkin. "Sakura-chan? Does that... bother you?" He snuck quick looks up at her as he twisted his napkin into a knot.

"That you and Sasuke are being taught by two of the Three and I'm not?"

Naruto winced at the way she knew _exactly_ what he was talking about. That couldn't be a good sign, could it?

She steepled her hands together, looking at her fingertips. "I'm a little envious, sometimes," she admitted, softly. "But then I think... all three of us had to give things up for the training we're getting now. Sasuke has to be on the road while you and I get to stay together here. You had to start training in healing, and I know you never had that as a goal. I don't have a legendary tutor all my own, but, you know, I also don't have a legendary enemy after me personally and I also don't have a demon fox sealed inside me I have to figure out how to deal with." She looked up at him with her mouth tilted. "I'm kind of okay with those things. And I do like working with Intelligence; I think it carries a lot of weight with them, that Kakashi-sensei recommended me."

"Well, that's because you're awesome, Sakura-chan," Naruto mumbled, looking at his napkin again. "I always thought so."

She actually smiled at that, instead of passing it off or smacking him in the shoulder, and that made him have to drop the napkin before he actually ripped it.

"So, go on and read what else Sasuke says," she said lightly. "I thought the part about the camels was pretty good, and he's got a new form of Chidori."

Naruto spread out the letter again with a little relief. Sakura was awesome, but Sasuke was easier to understand any day.

* * *

Sasuke leaned back on the rail of the boat, looking up at the sky above them. It seemed endless, from this angle, the blue only broken by a few hazy veils of cloud. He wished his life were more like that sky.

Annoyingly familiar weight settled beside him with what had to be deliberate thumps and creaks. "Looks like we'll have a good, clear passage," Jiraiya remarked, all bluff and cheerful.

Sasuke give his teacher a Look, and Jiraiya just smiled, perfectly cheery.

"Ah, there's the true Uchiha glare. What are you so pissy about this time? We're heading for Water Country just like you wanted, aren't we?"

"For your purposes," Sasuke pointed out with precision. "Not mine."

Jiraiya waved a finger at him and took a drink from his jug. "Nonsense, my purposes are yours! We're going to investigate!"

"No," Sasuke said. "They're not the same. You're always trying to get me to change the way I look at things, or think about something. Like the way you keep reminding me of my clan, but always in a way that would push me away from our traditions." He snorted as Jiraiya raised his brows. "Sakura may be the best at this, but that doesn't mean I don't use my brain too."

After a long moment, Jiraiya leaned back against the rail beside him and looked up at the sky. "You have the potential to be a fine shinobi. And a very powerful one. But you'll never realize it if you pay more attention to the past than the present."

"I'm not going to forget my clan!" Sasuke snapped.

"And here you said you used your brain," Jiraiya mused and took another drink while Sasuke glared at him. "Of course you won't forget them. But you should blunt the memory a little so it doesn't cut you." He quirked his eyebrow at Sasuke. "The Uchiha had many things to be proud of, and one madman doesn't erase that. You don't have to prove every bit of their honor all by yourself."

Sasuke flinched. It wasn't _fair_ how Jiraiya could spend all his time acting like a drunk buffoon and then turn around and do things like this. See and say things that felt like a knife going in past his guard. Only without hurting. Exactly.

Jiraiya clapped him on the shoulder. "Well, come on, then! We're at sea; time to work on water techniques, maybe see what you can make of them combined with that Chidori of yours."

Sasuke sighed and did as he was told. The part of his brain that wasn't thinking about conductivity and possible applications of steam, though, wrapped those words about the honor of Uchiha around his heart and took comfort in them.

* * *

 _Naruto, Sakura,_

 _We're coming back to the village for a little while. Found absolutely nothing about Akatsuki in Water Country, though Mist seems to have had yet another civil war. It sounds like it's about time, too, the last Mizukage and his cohort must have been really twisted. I'm almost surprised Akatsuki wasn't here, [blot that might have started with an I] they'd have been right at home._

 _See you soon._

 _Sasuke_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Given how much time Madara spends, in canon, getting other people to do his dirty work, it never sat right with me that he was the only one involved in the attack on Kushina.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Seven is back together only to split up again when Sakura volunteers to go undercover with Orochimaru. Drama.

Sakura flopped down under one of the trees that ringed the twenty-sixth training ground, panting and laughing a little as Naruto and Sasuke larked off across the clearing. Where "larked off" involved the two of them trying to, variously, incinerate, electrocute, suffocate, and dismember each other.

It was good to train with her team again; it pushed her, and it made her push herself. But she knew she'd never have quite the kind of stamina and reserves they did, even if she trained and conditioned for years. Not least because they'd undoubtedly spend the same time also training and conditioning! She wasn't sure they could actually make themselves stop, by now, not when they were in each other's company.

She was glad that Sasuke was back with them, too. Back where she and Naruto could protect him, not that she would breathe a word of that to him. Or to Naruto, for that matter, who probably didn't need any encouragement. But some of the things she'd read in the secure files had not made her sleep any better at night. Orochimaru was increasing his pressure on the village, and it had only been luck that Hagane Kotetsu hadn't died five months ago, retrieving Shizune from the hands of four Sound-nin who'd seized and tortured her for Sasuke's location. Only the fact that Tsunade-sama had shouted down her advisers and gone with the mission herself had saved him, and ensured that Shizune could still walk.

And still they didn't know where Orochimaru's hideout, which she refused to dignify with the name of "village", was. One research facility had been located, and several nodes in his message system, but the only Leaf agent to get any further had been killed before he could report back.

Sasuke was still in danger, and so, increasingly, was everyone around him. It was Sakura's job to figure out how that could be stopped. For her team and, these days, for the village.

Naruto finally buried Sasuke under too many Shadow Clones to dodge. Sasuke gave in with bad grace, and they came to collapse beside her in the shade.

"That's good," Naruto declared after a few swallows from the water bottle. "Training with Neji just isn't the same."

"Of course not." Sasuke swiped the bottle from him. "A one-trick pony like that."

"So is Jiraiya-san going to stay for a while?" Sakura put in, sliding easily back into the habit of deflecting them from conversation-interrupting scuffles.

Sasuke looked disgruntled. "Who the hell knows? I think he thinks it's good for me to deal with the unpredictable, or something."

"Well," Naruto said after a moment's thought, "it is, isn't it?"

Sasuke groaned just a little as he passed the water back to Sakura and let an arm fall over his eyes. "Why couldn't it be you that went off with the pervert, instead of me? Tsunade has got to be easier to deal with."

"She totally is not!" Naruto insisted roundly. "She's a fiend. A demon! She actually turned my jacket _pink_!"

"It was only an illusion," Sakura noted in the interests of fairness. "And only after you bleached her coat lime green."

Sasuke was looking at them with an expression of faint betrayal. "The whole world is insane, except for me, isn't it?"

Sakura leaned back on her elbows laughing softly as the boys argued, warmed by a wave of affection for her teammates. And, at the same time, frustrated, because just loving her teammates wouldn't help her do what needed to be done. It certainly wouldn't have any affect on Orochimaru.

Now maybe, she mused, thoughts turning darker, if she'd been like Sasuke had once seemed set to become, if she'd done nothing but resent them, resent the attention they got, maybe that was something Orochimaru would take notice of. She was pretty sure he'd been at least partly to blame for that episode of Sasuke's. And, in all honestly, there were times when she did feel some of that, when she wanted the same brute strength they had on tap, when she wanted to be as flashy and eye-catching as they were. But she dealt with it, let herself feel it deep inside and then went on, because she loved them a lot more than she resented them. She'd never let herself fall to the level of the slime Orochimaru seemed to take delight in hiring on. Potential wasn't reality or execution; feelings weren't actions.

 _But I could use that_.

The thought whispered through the back of her mind, where plans and strategies lived, and her eyes slowly widened, staring up at the rustling leaves and their shadows.

* * *

The Hokage was frowning. "How do you think you can get in, though?"

"We know where some of Orochimaru's message drops are," Sakura stated, hands folded behind her as she stood straight in front of the Tsunade-sama's desk. "If one of Sasuke's team leaves a message for him, I think he'll at least agree to meet me."

"If I recall correctly," Tsunade said dryly, "that was how the last agent of ours to try this got killed. What would make this any more than throwing away another of my people?"

Sakura looked over at Kakashi-sensei, leaning against the wall and half hidden by the coat rack. He was the one who'd gotten her this meeting after all, and her sponsor in Intelligence. He just opened a hand palm up. So it was up to her to convince the Hokage.

All right, then.

Sakura closed her eyes and reached for the place she kept the things she didn't let out. Anger, mostly, the part of her that wanted to crush things into nothing or rip them into shreds. She thought about all the passing flashes of resentment, when Naruto and Sasuke both got extra training and she didn't; when Sasuke executed the techniques her research turned up, the ones she just didn't have the chakra capacity to perform; when Naruto effortlessly made Sasuke respond to him; when people murmured about the success record of their team and never once mentioned _her_ ; when her parents cheerfully assumed that she was doing _filing_ for the Intelligence center, and she was forbidden to correct them.

She unlocked the cave she kept all that in, all the curses and spitting rage and pure, unadorned selfishness, and she opened her eyes and looked at the world through spite.

Tsunade rocked back in her chair. "Sakura..."

"Why shouldn't I go to Orochimaru?" Sakura asked, hard and raw. "No one in this village will ever take me seriously as long as the _boys_ are there. Why shouldn't I go somewhere they will? What has Sasuke ever done but reject and ignore me? Orochimaru can _have_ him."

And then she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered and let the panic growing at the back of her mind that insisted she loved her teammates and she was important to them sweep away the coldness. When she looked up again, Tsunade was starting.

"I see why you recommended her for Intelligence," she said to Kakashi, not taking her eyes off Sakura.

"I thought she'd be good at it, yes," he murmured, and came to rest a steadying hand on Sakura's shoulder.

Sakura took a few deep breaths. "If you give permission, I'll need some help from one of the specialists in deep cover. I can do it, but I know there are ways to make it stick better than I can right now."

"Make it stick, huh?" Tsunade didn't look happy with that.

"The techniques in question also help buffer the agent," Kakashi put in. "There needs to be something real there to work with, though, otherwise the altered consciousness too obvious to someone who knows what they're looking at. The risk, here, won't be Orochimaru. It'll be Kabuto. And Sakura is our best potential agent against his knowledge."

Tsunade growled, eyes flashing hot. "That bastard." She brooded for a long moment and finally looked up at Sakura. "Are you sure about this? Really sure? It will take months, at the least, possibly more than a year before you can get word to us about where Orochimaru's bases are, and we can gather enough strength to attack without warning him. I'll believe you and Kakashi, if you both say you can do this. But are you really sure you want to sacrifice this much?" She reached a hand over her desk and finished softly, "We can find another way."

"We've tried other ways," Sakura said quietly. "They haven't worked. And it's getting worse. My team is in danger, and they're one of the things I care most about in the world." Her mouth twitched in a not-entirely-successful smile. "I know it'll be really hard to remember that while I'm busy denying it. I know I'll probably need... help, after. If I survive. But I want to do this. Just..." she swallowed. "Don't let the boys know where I've gone. That I'm undercover, yes. But not where."

"Not until the end," Tsunade promised. "They'd both kill me if I didn't let them go along to finish it and extract you."

That thought made the tightness in her heart relax and settle, and Sakura smiled for real. "Yes."

Tsunade sat back with a sigh. "All right, then. Do it."

* * *

"This technique is a subtle one," Miuhara lectured, as if this were just another exercise. "It doesn't force any response, it just encourages one or another, according to the key we set today. You'll probably have to make pretty continuous, conscious decisions about what to say and present; this is just a little aide. It should also help you hold part of yourself free of the new template. That said, the longer you use it, the more it burns in, and the greater the backlash when you break it. If you can, try not to break it until you're back in the village and our own division's medics can support you."

Sakura clasped and unclasped her hands and nodded quickly. "I understand." And she was glad she'd been assigned to Miuhara, for this. Having some instruction from a familiar agent, one she knew was experienced, helped her hold on to her resolution.

"All right, then!" Miuhara clapped his hands. "Let's get started."

Sakura seated herself in the center of the bare, underground room and concentrated on her breathing while Miuhara drew circles of seals around her on the slate floor. She could do this, she told herself firmly.

"Now." Miuhara knelt at the gate of the seal. "Find the thoughts you need to encourage, and we'll imprint them as the key."

Sakura nodded and folded her hands into the Snake, closing her eyes to concentrate.

What she needed for this, she had decided, was to pretend that the past two years hadn't happened. That she was still the weak one, taking what comfort she could in controlling her little puddle of chakra precisely. That she was still the ugly one, compensating as best she could with soft manners and girlish clothes, and always right on the edge of snapping, of shouting at someone, of shouting at the whole world because she was the one who was smart, who was right, who knew what she was doing. And no one ever noticed, because she had to not put herself forward, had to be hesitant and only halfway offer help, and then be self-effacing when someone asked; otherwise everyone would think she was showing off, and she'd be twice as ostracized as before. And here she was teamed with Naruto, who was an absolute idiot and bulled right through all those nets of expectations and didn't seem to care; she'd been able to tell herself it was just him compensating for being a dreadful ninja, up until they went into the field and she saw him use techniques she _knew_ were A rank! And then she was so jealous she could hardly breathe. All the more so, because the other member of the team was the boy she wanted to notice her; if Sasuke noticed her, then she wouldn't have to feel like trash in front of the prettier girls. And it just figured that this one hope of hers, dropped right into her lap when every other girl in class would kill to be on Sasuke's team, ignored her completely. Acted like she was totally useless. Paid attention to _Naruto_ but never to her! And the more she tried to hold on to the idea of romance, the more furious she got, deep inside.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to show all that on the surface, for once, instead of hiding it away? To _show them all._

"Now the Ram," a calm voice broke into her reflections, and some part of her had been waiting for this, and she slid her hands through to the Ram instead.

It felt like a douse of ice water over her brain, and she yelped.

"Yeah," Miuhara said, scribbling one more seal across a paper laid over the gate. "The closing kind of stings. Hold still, now." The paper burst into flame and Sakura held herself still against the tingle that itched down her nerves and through her mind. "Done." Miuhara sat back, satisfied. "Okay, come out of there and try it."

Sakura picked her way through the lines of ink and wove her hands through the thirteen seals that initiated the Heart In a Net technique.

"I'm Orochimaru's agent," Miuhara said, cold and suspicious. "Why should we trust you?"

Sakura drew herself up and gave him a look of utter contempt. "Because _I_ can give your master what he's failed to get for himself all this time. Sasuke won't come after me on his own, but Naruto is enough of a fool to do it, if they get wind of where I am. And he'll bring Sasuke with him." She leaned against the wall and smiled, hard. "But I'd better get a lot out of the deal. More than the Leaf would ever give me."

She knew it wasn't true. But it could have been. And it felt exhilarating to let the rage and contempt show, like flying, unsupported and without anchor on the wind.

Miuhara nodded. "Good, that rang true. Now break it."

Sakura formed the five seals of closing with precision and had to shake her head vigorously as the film of _anger/strike back/bitterness/show them all_ slid away. "Ugh." She pressed her hands over her face and said, fervently, "I am so glad I'm not there any more."

"Mmm. You're going to be there for a long time, on this mission." Miuhara dusted his knees off, watching her narrowly. "Still think you can do it, now you know what it will be like?"

Sakura touched the love for her team that she held in her heart, and the bright rage against those who threatened them. Those, she was reassured, wouldn't go away no matter how she covered them up or disguised them. "Yes," she said quietly, straightening. "I do."

Miuhara smiled. "That's the last test, then. Go look over your notes one more time before you burn them, and have your farewell with your team. I'll make sure even your sealed records say you've been a clerk, and that's already your public cover. You're ready to go."

As ready as she'd ever be, at any rate.

* * *

She went out for yakiniku, that night, with Sasuke and Naruto, and all three of them scuffled over the food like kids. They tossed little illusions at each other and wove complicated wire traps, competing to see who could snatch the most perfectly cooked meat. Sakura and Sasuke decreed that Naruto couldn't use more than one Shadow Clone, and Naruto insisted in return that Sasuke couldn't use his Sharingan to see which bits of meat were illusions. Sakura agreed with a virtuous air, and promptly attached chakra threads to three pieces while they were arguing. She captured all three of them, too, to loud protests from her teammates.

When the last bite had disappeared, they sat together over their tea, quietly.

"So, you're gonna be gone for a while, huh?" Naruto asked, finally.

"A couple months at least." Sakura sipped her tea, rolling the heat over her tongue. "If it's a harder nut to crack than I hope... maybe a year." Somewhere in between the two was her own guess, but they should know her worst-case estimate.

"Had to happen just when we're all back," Sasuke grumbled under his breath, and wouldn't look at them. Sakura smiled softly.

"Take care of each other while I'm gone, okay? Since I won't be here to keep you both out of trouble."

That made them both look at her, Sasuke with eloquently raised brows and Naruto with an open mouth. "Keep us _out_ of trouble?" he echoed in disbelief. "Who was it who made the plan to hold Kakashi's books hostage against a candid photo, huh?"

Sakura laced her fingers under her chin and batted her eyelashes. "I don't know _what_ you're talking about."

Sasuke snorted. "So the trouble won't be as well planned until you get back, is what you mean. You'd better hurry, then."

"I'll do my best," she said, wrapping the warmth of their confidence around her.

She was unfortunately sure that she'd need it.

* * *

And all her plans and preparation had come to this moment, to an underground base and a carved stone hall, and one of her village's legendary Sannin watching her from the shadows of torchlight with a small, cruel smile.

"So? You say you can bring me Sasuke, for a price. What price is that?"

Sakura shifted her shoulders under her chuunin uniform, minus the forehead protector, and pulled up a glare out of the hot, sullen reservoir in her stomach. "Power. That's what you offered Sasuke, isn't it? So I'll claim the bargain instead." She smiled a little, hard and sardonic. "But not that seal's power. I'm not interested in anything that will make it easier for someone else to control me. Not ever again."

"Hmm." Orochimaru made an interested little sound. She thought he was amused. "And in return for this, you will serve me?"

"I'll serve my own interests," she answered coolly. "You should understand that's a lot surer."

He actually laughed. "Well, well. Perhaps I'll like this bargain better, after all." He came closer, looking down at her, predatory. "Very well, little kunoichi. I'll give you power, and you'll give me Sasuke. After," he added, "I'm sure of you, of course."

She shrugged a shoulder. "I expected that. Just don't push it too far."

Rage and the freedom of saying exactly what she thought whirled in her heart, and if much of that rage was against the creature in front of her... well, he didn't have to know that.

Not until the end.

She pushed those thoughts down as far as she could, underneath the older anger at the limits her village had hung on her, and followed him deeper into the complex.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sakura insinuates herself into Hidden Sound and the dance of mutual deception and seduction commences among her, Orochimaru, and Kabuto. Also featuring the beginning of Akatsuki's plan emerging.
> 
> Some horror in this section, particularly the human experimentation.

Kabuto tapped politely on Sakura's door before looking in. "Orochimaru-sama wants to see you."

"About time." Sakura rolled up off her bed, where she'd been examining her ceiling and getting increasingly bored, and strode after him down the hallways of Sound's hidden heart.

She blended into the torch-shadows like they did, now. The one thing Orochimaru had done, in the three weeks she'd been waiting, was give her the run of Sound's outfitting supplies. Sakura suspected it was a test of sorts, but that was all right. She was done hiding what she was (and that made the best cover of all). She'd tossed her chuunin uniform into storage and chosen instead a snugly zipped leather vest, loose pants, and half gloves. All in black. She was done trying to be pretty and unthreatening, too. Orochimaru had chuckled.

Today he waited for her in one of his laboratories, smiling and cold-eyed and avid. "You've been wanting an opportunity to prove yourself. Here's a bit of research that I believe your skills might assist me with." He waved a hand at the table spread with diagram scrolls.

Sakura studied them and gave him a faintly disgusted look as she flipped them into what had to be the proper order. What was this, an exam? She ignored his smirk as she read. The heart of it was the Earth, Wind and Fire seal, but so woven into grounding channels that all its force seemed to be siphoned off. A strange approach for a technique that was supposed to tear a battleground into something impassable. But the grounding also seemed to circle back. A feedback loop? "A power source," she finally said, slowly. "Looping the explosive energy until it's concentrated in one path. There's no outlet, though."

"Well, that's up to the subject, isn't it?" Orochimaru asked.

Sakura's world flipped over and she imagined the seal drawn on a person, not the ground. She snorted and let the scroll under her hand roll up. "I didn't come here to be your guinea pig."

"It's a technique still in development. You wouldn't be the first tester, of course," Orochimaru purred. "But I'm sure you'll wish to oversee the stages of testing and refinement."

( _I can't do that, I can't..._ ) Sakura forced down a twist of sickness and curled her lip. "I didn't come here to be your own personal torturer, either," she said and jerked her chin at Kabuto. "That's what he's for, isn't it?"

Orochimaru raised his brows. "Scruples, little kunoichi?" he murmured, and there was danger in his voice.

Sakura crossed her arms. "What you do is your business. What I do is _mine_. I'm here because you have something I want, and I have something you want; don't think that means I'm going to swear myself to Sound or follow your path. I've got my own." She stared back at him with all the fury of finally speaking and acting her mind, after all those years of muffling herself; she wasn't going to just accept a new blanket to throw over her own will, having finally fought free (that would only make sense).

"Hm." He studied her, finally smiling again. "I suppose I'll have to send you on a field assignment, then, to see what you're made of."

Sakura shrugged. "That's what I like best. Just as long as whatever goons you assign me know the difference between 'betraying Sound' and 'halfway decent strategy'." She smiled back at him, chilly. "I wouldn't like being killed by accident, and you wouldn't like how many you'd lose doing it."

He laughed low in his throat. "Very practical. How refreshing. Kabuto," he waved a hand, turning back to his diagrams, "introduce her to Sakon's new team. She can plan the trip into Earth Country."

( _Sakon, only survivor of the snatch for Shizune, has one of those seals like Sasuke's._ ) Sakura prepared herself to show no sign of recognition as she followed Kabuto out into the halls again. Filing clerk, she reminded herself; pissed as fuck not to have known about the attack despite working for Intelligence, if they mention it.

"He seems to like you," Kabuto said conversationally. It took Sakura a moment to remember he was talking about Orochimaru, not Sakon. "I think he sees himself in you."

After the conversation they'd just had about testing (torture), that was a jab. Sakura snorted and jabbed back, as he'd surely expect her to. "What, because I finally figured out, after years of trying, that _what I am_ is never going to be good enough for the precious Leaf? Never acceptable, no matter how good I am? Never right and _normal_?"

She could feel him stiffening beside her, just for a flash of an instant, and for that same instant his glance was dangerous. And then he smiled again and murmured, "Perhaps."

"I'm very good at what I do," she said softly, feeling for her footing in this exchange, remembering Kakashi's words about Kabuto being the real danger to her cover. She had to convince him, and that meant pushing back against him. "I hid it for years and years under sweet, soft manners. I know what can hide behind a polite smile. Kabuto-senpai."

His smile turned more genuine for another flash, dark and sharp. "Will that knowledge keep you alive?"

She shrugged one shoulder, starting to enjoy this sparring though it made her pulse run faster. "You said yourself that he sees himself in me. As long as he can get something he wants out of me, there's no reason to kill me. And," she added, gambling that a man who kept that sweet mask, even here, would have his own agenda, even here, "as long as I'm not a threat to your ends you'll enjoy me while I'm around."

Kabuto's smile was inscrutable again and he laid his hand on a door. "Perhaps. Here we are." As she walked past him into the room, he murmured, "Just remember that I _did_ swear myself to Sound."

So. Either he was saying that he didn't actually have any agenda separate from Orochimaru's, and was genuinely loyal; or else he was saying that he was even more ruthless in pursuit of his separate agenda than she was, even to giving an oath he meant to betray. If her answer assumed either one, and the other was true, Sakura would be dead. Sakura felt a flash of the same thrill she'd felt facing Fuunotora across the sands of the Exam arena, and smiled back.

"I'll remember, senpai." And let him make what he would out of that.

* * *

Sakura didn't like Sakon, or his team. They were arrogant. They were careless. They were idiots. She found herself wishing, a little wistfully, that they really would mistake her sensible precautions for sabotage and try to kill her, so that she'd have a really good excuse to activate the trap seals she'd prepared for each of them. Unfortunately, she suspected that Orochimaru, who was mad but not stupid, had told them to just report her actions back, whatever she did.

(It nauseated her, at night, when she was falling asleep and sliding down deeper than her persona, to feel that callous urge to eliminate them and know it was at least partly real. She buried that under her persona as soon as she could, every morning.)

She'd certainly have preferred a more subtle group with which to track two of Akatsuki, who were reported to be, in turn, tracking the host of a tailed beast. Especially considering that one of those Akatsuki seemed to be Uchiha Itachi.

 _A field test indeed._ Her lip curled. Orochimaru was subtle, even if his tools weren't.

(She wanted, so very much, to get this information back to the Leaf; another sighting of Itachi, after years of traceless silence. But she didn't dare. That would be just what Orochimaru was watching for.)

"What the hell, so we only get to watch them?" The one called Kagura lounged back against the sandy rock of their vantage point. "Boring."

"Orochimaru-sama's orders." Not that Miyu was watching anything but her knives as she sharpened them.

"You and your weird crush on the boss," Kagura muttered, turning over to take a look over the edge of the boulder again. "If we're watching, we should be closer."

"Not while Uchiha Itachi is down there," Sakura said flatly. Again.

"Like he could handle all three of us." Sakon paused and added. "Well, all four, I suppose." He gave her a smirk that said, clear as words, that he meant his brother-self as the fourth, not her.

"Don't be more of an idiot than you can help," Sakura directed, cold. "I realize that may not be much, since you apparently can't read a background briefing. Itachi has a new level of the Sharingan; one look and you'll be down for days with the after-effects. None of you are careful enough to be trusted to avoid it." Ah, it felt so good to just _say_ that.

"Illusions," Kagura sneered.

"Physical effects," Sakura corrected. "Now shut up and watch; I think they're making their move." At least they were finally approaching the tall shinobi in the red armor they'd been tracking. They seemed to actually be talking to him. Trying to recruit him?

Apparently not, since the Rock-nin leaped back, steam suddenly spinning around him like a vortex. Itachi's partner tossed his head back as if he'd laughed and pulled his enormous sword off his back.

"So if the Uchiha is all that, why's it the sword guy going in?" Kagura demanded.

"The swordsman seems to be enjoying himself," Miyu observed, fortunately before Sakura gave in to temptation and strangled Kagura.

It was true enough that the swordsman—one of Mist's Seven Swordsmen according to the briefing—seemed to be amusing himself, fighting with broad, showy strokes whose flash didn't conceal their brutality. (Sakura remembered Zabuza with a shiver. But she could feel that glee, that enjoyment inside herself, now.) And Itachi stood quietly aside, waiting with every appearance of patience.

"Huh," Sakon commented, elbow on their concealing boulder. "That's some chakra the red one's got going."

Sakura wondered if that was what Akatsuki was after; the chakra of the tailed beasts, the greatest weapon of the hidden villages. But how did they think they could control the hosts? Surely the beast's chakra would overwhelm any brainwashing technique attempted on the host.

...or perhaps that was what Itachi was for, with his strange, new Sharingan.

( _Naruto!_ )

Sakura watched the fight below with narrowed eyes and hoped the white knuckles of her hand gripping the rock would be taken for fear. Her breath hissed in as the host started to manifest visibly and she said to her temporary team, low and tense, "Be ready to move back."

"What, _more_?"

Sakura didn't even look at Kagura. "You weren't there when the One-tail got loose, were you? Stay if you want; I'll report back on how small a smear you left." Chakra was whipping around the red armor below, though the Swordsman's strange blade seemed to be keeping him clear; absorbing chakra, or deflecting it? She couldn't tell from here. Hints of a long, narrow head rose above the host.

And then Itachi stepped forward. He just stood there, unmoving, but abruptly the gathering chakra blazed, ragged and wild. And collapsed.

"What the fuck did he _do_?" Sakon demanded.

"I told you," Sakura said through her teeth, trying to keep her voice from shaking with the sudden knot of cold fear in her belly. "Come on," she added, as Itachi's partner hauled the tall Rock-nin over his shoulder. "We'll follow them as far as we can. But if any of you get too close and get caught, you're on your own."

"Yeah, fine," Kagura muttered, looking unsettled.

Sakura directed them out into a tracking formation and started after the two Akatsuki as soon as they were out of sight. Which took a while as the two strolled across the plain below, careless of concealment.

She would report all her suspicions to Orochimaru. And would not seek any of her message drops to Konoha. Not yet.

( _Naruto! Sasuke! Oh, stay safe, be careful, don't let them catch you!_ )

The wind, here in Earth Country, was making her eyes tear up and she blinked to clear them.

* * *

A scream rang down the hall and in an instant Sakura had her back to the thick stone wall and a knife in hand. Another two weeks of waiting after her "test" mission had pulled her nerves tight.

"Admirable reflexes, Sakukra-san," Kabuto murmured, "but unnecessary." He looked down the hall. "Shall we see if the latest tests were successful?"

( _Because of me, no, no, no..._ ) Sakura took a slow breath. She couldn't pretend she hadn't known from the start where the power Orochimaru promised came from. She made her kunai vanish and followed Kabuto down toward where greenish light spilled out of an open door.

Inside, Orochimaru stood with folded arms, watching a man in the middle of the bare, stone room with an expression of dissatisfaction. He looked up as they came in and made a small _tch_ of annoyance. "The Eight Gates won't do for this at all, Kabuto; I was on the right track with the first seal. If the power released is internal, there's no chance at all of limiting it." He waved a hand at the man.

Sakura swallowed hard, knowing her eyes were stretched wide. The man looked like he was on fire, crouched on the floor with heat and sweat and chakra boiling off him, shedding themselves into the visible spectrum. He made another sound, hoarse and desperate, and abruptly collapsed onto the stone. The raging heat and light around him died down and down and finally out, along with his last, faint movements.

He wasn't breathing.

Orochimaru sighed. "No, that won't do at all. But don't worry, little kunoichi," he smiled at Sakura, slow and more than a little mad. "There's always a way, if one just searches for it deep enough."

( _Deep enough in nightmare, no, don't think, don't think, don't feel, anger, that's all there is_ ) Sakura cleared her throat. "I hope so. I certainly have no interest in power that's too unstable to use."

"I assure you, I'm working diligently on it," Orochimaru murmured, watching her with dark amusement. "And for your part?"

Sakura folded her arms, looking down at them. "All right. As long as you're working on that, I'll work for you."

"Excellent!" He clapped his hands, sounding pleased. "I'm sure there will be plenty of missions that will suit you, here."

She knew it was true. (Would have to be true.) That was why she'd come here. She was shinobi, and she'd killed before. She would again. She clung to the bitter anger she'd fanned up in herself and turned her back on the body sprawled over the floor.

* * *

It was a little strange, how familiar missions made life. No matter the country, the wants of the people never seemed to change that much. Some people wanted protection, and some people wanted others gotten rid of. Someone always wanted to know what someone else was doing or saying. And all of those people came to the shinobi for help. So here she was, with a new team, lounging in the most upscale baths in Sound's capital and waiting for the mistress of the mayor to make her daily visit with her friends so that Sakura could find out where the mayor would be tonight. Even Orochimaru couldn't wring financial support out of a Daimyou without taking on some political jobs.

Kikyou slipped through the curtains and murmured, for Sakura's ears only, as she passed, "She's coming." Sakura nodded just a hair and swished her fingers under the water to send ripples toward the far corner. Kikyou waded that way and sank down into the water with a contented sigh, apparently indifferent to the two women already in the pool.

There was the one difference from her old familiar missions, though. This time, Sakura was in charge. Openly and officially, with no hidden orders to watch her.

(And so the message finally dropped, for Leaf after two and more months of waiting: the location of Hidden Sound, the tight-coded map, the warning about Akatsuki on the move, the don't-come-yet signal because he hasn't trusted her yet with the locations of more than two of the other bases. One tight roll of onion-skin paper she'd dropped blind and had to believe would be picked up.)

She liked the taste of being in control.

A drift of laughter preceded four beautiful women through the curtain.

"...and he brought the most gorgeous flowers, but I suspect it was his assistant who actually picked them out." Kotone of Kamura, the mayor's mistress waved one elegant hand, her laugh sweet and low even as she heaped scorn on her client. "I imagine the poor woman is relieved when I take up his attention."

None of the women had brought anything in with them and Sakura stretched her left arm out along the pool edge, signalling. Akemi slipped out of the pool and by the four women, bobbing her head timidly as she passed. She would check their clothing and things for any written assignations.

"So where is he taking you tonight?" one of the other women asked, coiling up her long, sleek hair.

Kotone touched a soft fingertip to her red lips. "It's a secret." She laughed as her friends protested. "Well, I'll tell you this much. It's in Fujiura territory." She slid into the water and leaned back with a full, pleased smile as her friends gasped with scandalized delight.

So it was true; the mayor was using his mistress' contacts to make deals with the city's yakuza clans. It remained to be seen whether he really thought he could replace the country's lord, as the Daimyou feared, but it was looking like that was the plan. Sakura closed her eyes and leaned back more comfortably, listening as Kikyou took the signal and stood. Under her lashes, she watched Kotone's gaze sharpen and follow Kikyou, and nodded to herself. Kikyou would lay a false trail, ending in perfect innocence, while Sakura and Akemi slipped into the Fujiura-run Mana restaurant to find out the details of this deal.

Everything was running smoothly, and exactly to her orders. Sakura relaxed into the water and fed her inner bitterness on satisfaction, drawing its veils more firmly around her heart to suppress worries about her message.

Yes. She liked the taste of this quite a lot.

* * *

Sakura stared at the twisted flow of stone in front of her. "This is what you call working?"

"It demonstrates that the principle is sound," Orochimaru lectured, as if this were a classroom. "Despite the subject's failure to control the process, it is, in fact, the correct process."

At least she didn't have to listen to any screaming this time. Actually, insofar as the thing still had a face, the statue ( _statue, not person, statue, think that_ ) looked rather peaceful. It just wasn't human. "I've seen plenty of transformations before," she said, pushing down her flickers of queasiness and distress, "but none that ended in stone. Not unless it was a bloodline talent."

"Mm, yes. I do have samples of such things, but grafting them is always touch and go. In this case," Orochimaru flicked casual fingers at the statue, "the petrification is the result of an overflow of energy. The body can no longer withstand it and crystallizes."

"I trust," Sakura said dryly, "you can think of a way around that problem."

"In time." He looked down at her with the predatory edge she was actually getting used to. "There's a way around every problem in time, little kunoichi."

* * *

Working with, and for, Orochimaru could be troublesome and disturbing, but it had been four months and she'd managed to get used to that. Traveling with him, Sakura had found, was unexpectedly and utterly exasperating. Orochimaru was finicky about where they stopped to sleep and would press on for extra hours to reach a town with lodgings he considered acceptable, but he was also distractable as a cat when some new thought struck and would stop them nearly midstride in a tree to write up experimental possibilities. Sakura was having downright ( _painful_ ) flashbacks to Naruto in pursuit of ramen. And she could not, no matter how she protested or lectured or, eventually, in desperation, cajoled, get Orochimaru to keep to his alleged travel schedule. _(So familiar, miss it so much, but not, no, never Orochimaru..._ )

And that wasn't even mentioning the actual route.

"How do you ever manage to visit your other bases often enough to keep them running?" she demanded as they rounded yet another switchback to a hidden gate. "It's going to take longer to get in than it does to inspect the place."

"If it bores you, I suppose I can bring Kabuto along as I usually do, instead," Orochimaru murmured, fingers flickering over the door, completing seals of unlocking.

Sakura ground down the sudden flare of alarm, checking their backtrail so he wouldn't see anything she couldn't conceal, and managed to grumble, "Why didn't you bring him this time, then?" ( _Have to be here, have to find all the bases._ )

"Kabuto has a job of his own this month." He glanced at her sidelong, slyly. "One of the places I'm afraid I can't send you."

Spying in Konoha most likely, then. ( _Have to trust my cover holds_.) She shrugged. "If this is what you need me for, fine. But, honestly, this is overkill."

"You'll see." He completed the seals and the door opened.

There were at least ten ninja behind it.

"Orochimaru-sama!" One of them hurried forward. "Suigetsu has escaped, please be careful!"

"Again?" Orochimaru sounded more intrigued than worried and Sakura fought the urge to roll her eyes, keeping a sharp eye on the room around them. "Show me the container. How did he get out this time?" He turned back to close the gates, head cocked at the man who'd warned him, and a silvery shimmer flashed out of the shadows, striking for his back.

Sakura was moving before she thought, following hard on her thrown kunai, watching as it went through what was attacking, driving her hands through the seals for Earth Wall even as she dove forward. She rolled and slapped a hand down to initiate the technique and breathed out as a thin wall of stone shot up just in time to intercept the attack.

And now, as the other ninja present started shouting and throwing around earth and lightning attacks, calculation actually caught up with her, murmuring in the back of her mind. ( _Chance to kill him, but might not, escapee, captured before, surprise attack but how often is Orochimaru really surprised? fifty-fifty chance, not good enough, defend him._ )

That calculation wasn't why she'd moved.

Sakura crouched by Orochimaru, most of her waiting, poised, to defend again if necessary. But a little part of her, hidden and sheltered as long as she'd been able, was shivering. ( _exasperating, familiar, miss it so much, acted to defend that memory, he's not them, but it feels so close..._ )

As the base ninja finally blasted earth through the attacker, who resolved into a half-liquid human figure, Orochimaru stepped up beside her and touched her shoulder in passing. "Well done, little kunoichi."

Satisfaction edged his voice and the base ninja nodded respectfully to her as she stood. It was the same way the people at the Sound village looked at Kabuto, Orochimaru's right hand. Trusted. Sakura took a silent breath in and deliberately pushed the wail of ( _not them, not the same, not!_ ) further down inside.

( _I'm shinobi. Whatever it takes. Use it._ )

She followed Orochimaru into the base, alert at his back as she would be to guard any shinobi she was assigned with.

( _not team!_ )

Her new team, she supposed.

* * *

Another month, another experiment. Whoever had given Orochimaru a science kit as a child had a lot to answer for. There was an unholy light in the man's eyes as he explained the changes he'd made since his last experimental subject had exploded all over his lab.

"Absolutely not," Sakura said flatly, stepping back from the table full of diagrams and seals. "This one draws on your control to supplement mine. The instant you let that lapse, I'm either soggy shreds or else a stone statue. An extremely strange one. You're just circling back around to the conclusion you reached with the elemental seals."

Orochimaru gave her a sour look, seeming right on the edge of pouting, and Sakura leaned her hip on the counter and snorted. "You like challenges," she reminded him. It was a lot of why she was still alive, she sometimes thought. That and his amusement at her measured insolence. "This approach is stalled. Tell me how the core of this works."

Orochimaru's brows rose. "I beg your pardon?"

Sakura sighed and rubbed a gloved hand over her face. He could be such a temperamental, pain in the ass, diva to work with; worse than Sasuke, honestly. ( _Want it back. Don't think about that._ ) "For one thing, I'm not letting you do anything to me that I don't understand. For another, I'm a damn good researcher, and I've been reading your library when you don't have any missions for me." She waved a hand at his papers. "I can already see what you're doing with the outer seals, channeling and looping the force to stabilize it. But why use a glorified explosive tag as the core in the first place?"

Now he smiled, slow and pleased. "Ah, but it isn't. The Earth, Wind and Fire seal is far more than that." He settled into a chair and crossed his legs. "Do you know the actual power source for that technique?"

Sakura cocked her head. "Isn't it the shinobi's own chakra? The warnings on it make it look that way; it draws chakra out so abruptly and in such volume that it can kill the user if they're not strong enough." That was, in essence, how every technique worked.

His smile got wider. "Oh, no. The reason the warnings call for only jounin rank to use this is because it requires that much strength to control the power source. Which is the energy of nature around us, you see. _That_ is what kills the users."

Sakura blinked. "But... wait a minute. There are plenty of techniques that link the user with the energy of the world around them. That's the source of every elemental technique there is!" She paused in thought for a moment and added, slowly, "Though... not the power source, I suppose..."

"Precisely." Orochimaru leaned back in great good humor. "Ninja use the resonance between their personal energy and that of the natural world to _form_ techniques. But not to power them. Because, unless the user has both great power of their own to balance the inrush, and also phenomenal control to shape what is, after all, an alien energy... well. The results can be very interesting."

Sakura reflected on what kind of thing Orochimaru found interesting and had to hold back a shudder. "And this is what you want to draw onto me, like I was some kind of really big parchment tag?" she asked. It wasn't actually a rhetorical question, considering who she was talking to.

"Ah!" Orochimaru held up a finger, eyes brightening again. "But you have the control. You will be able to shape it, once you have it. What must be supplied is a backstop, as it were. Some bracing to hold you steady against the flow and aid you in cutting it off before it runs out of balance."

"Hm." Sakura gave him a long, narrow look, and finally turned back to the diagrams, examining them with a new eye. "Are there any other techniques that use that source?" she asked absently, and looked up, startled, at the disgusted sound he made.

"The so-called 'Sage' techniques. That fool only made it work by having helpers, though, summons who could feed the energy to him. That seems to tame it a little." He smiled, very unpleasantly. "Though it also transformed the user a little bit into the form of his helpers. Very appropriate, I thought."

Sakura considered Orochimaru's sour expression, and the only person she'd ever heard referred to as a sage, and nodded to herself. Jiraiya. Interesting. "Well, then, what we need here are some 'helper' seals, isn't it? Separate seals to receive the force from Earth, Wind and Fire and feed it into a whole different channeling system. I bet I know one that would work, too." She grabbed some paper and started writing, chewing the end of the brush now and then as she thought back to how, exactly, these had gone. "Not the Summer River seal; that will contain it but not smooth or slow it at all. Channel it through the Three Gates and the Dragon at Dawn, and then smooth the output through Summer Rain."

(Seals that Tsunade had used to let Sakura channel Naruto's—no, the Nine-tail's—chakra to her. With Tsunade's work to contain the force, just maybe Sakura could trust this to be used on her.)

She smiled with tight satisfaction as she wrote the last line. "There."

Orochimaru examined her work closely, brows slowly rising. "Hmm. An unusual approach, but, as the source is external, this might work yes." He glanced at her, eyes gleaming. "It will rely wholly on your judgement, to stop the inflow before it burns you out."

Sakura raised her chin. "My control is second to none. I can do it."

( _It will work, oh god it_ will _work, this is it and it's too soon, can't delay any more, wait!, yes, can..._ )

"Well, then," he murmured, and she cut him off.

" _After_ that's been tested to my satisfaction." She crossed her arms and stood firm against his burning excitement, hard and unmoving. No one was going to control her or burn her out for his own amusement. No one. That was her only concern. ( _Has to be._ )

He looked at her for a long moment and finally laughed, low. "Very well, then." His mouth curled. "Sakura."

It jolted her. He'd never used her name to her before. Never... recognized her like that. The change struck her breathless and flustered, habitual anger easing. Whatever else Orochimaru was, he was one of the Leaf's Sannin, and he acknowledged her.

"Come." He gathered up the papers and swept out the door. "Let us see how this works." Knowledge lay dark under his smile as he looked over his shoulder at her.

( _can't go there!_ )

( _Have to go there._ )

She nodded silently and followed him down the shadowy halls toward the sturdy stone testing areas.

* * *

Sakura slung her pack into the corner by her bed and stretched. This had been a long mission, though at least her subordinates were finally jumping properly when she told them what to do. Orochimaru had assigned her yet another team ( _not her team, remember somehow_ ) over a month ago, and it had taken her a while to harry them into shape. She suspected Orochimaru of using her to train the less experienced shinobi of Sound, but she couldn't do a very fast job of it when he was also pulling her aside after every mission away to watch people attempt to use the seal he'd... they'd created. Attempts that had failed so far ( _Good, it's an excuse to wait, to build more information._ ), and when he asked, she'd chosen a mission over watching the latest round.

( _she'd dropped the next message, they'd be ready to come when she showed herself, would brief Naruto and Sasuke to play their parts_ )

At any rate, the rural lord whose ambition the Daimyou of Sound had been worried about was dead, and the country's leader bound that much tighter to his "Otokage". She rolled her eyes a little over that self-bestowed title. Though Orochimaru did have the ability to match it. Not the clout, not the influence, and not the _country_ , but the ability. No one could deny that.

"Sakura-san?" She turned to find Kabuto standing in her doorway. "Good timing! I think your procedure is ready for you."

Adrenaline spiked through her. "The seal? It's ready?"

He smiled. "The final tests went very smoothly. The subject managed to halt the power before he lost control, and showed significantly increased speed and reserves."

She took a slow breath. Power. Orochimaru's half of their bargain, she was going to have power to match almost anyone. And once the bargain was fulfilled, she'd agreed to show herself openly enough to attract Naruto's notice and bring Sasuke in his wake.

( _Over half a year, this is it._ )

( _counted every day_ )

( _Still don't have the last base location, have to keep him from suspecting, have to be trusted, have to do it..._ )

She looked Kabuto in the eye, flushed with anticipation. "Let's do it, then."

Kabuto set down a small box on her table. "Take these before you sleep. They'll help calm your chakra in preparation for binding the seal to you."

"'Calm my chakra' hm?" She flipped open the box and eyed the two pills inside. "You're saying I have to make myself vulnerable to the imprint of the seal for it to take?"

For a breath, his eyes glinted. "I've admired the quickness of your understanding from the start, Sakura-san."

Another move in their constant sparring, always full of double and triple meanings. Did he mean she understood him? Understood Orochimaru? Understood only the surface, the technicalities?

"I'm flattered, Kabuto-senpai," she murmured. She only called him that when they spoke alone like this. Double and triple meanings.

"Only the truth." He slipped back out, closing the door softly behind him. "Sleep well, Sakura-san," drifted back through it.

She took the pills and slept deeply and walked into Kabuto's operating room the next morning with a firm step. She thought he'd probably put sedatives in there, too.

Orochimaru turned, smiling. "Ah, Sakura. There you are." His eyes were bright, but more focused than was usual when he was in the grip of experimentation and invention, which was reassuring. He'd already gotten the early, jittery excitement out of his system, apparently.

Kabuto made a reassuringly normal medical fuss around her, getting her prepared and onto his table. "I'll need to work along your spine, so if you'll lie on your stomach," he directed, draping a sheet modestly over her.

"I have watched this before," she pointed out, settling herself. Kabuto laughed, warm and comforting.

"I know; it's just medic patter. We're trained to do this, you know, to set people at ease."

"No wonder you're such a good spy," she muttered. "You were _trained_ to lie."

Kaubto paused and she could imagine the quirk of his mouth that went with his suddenly darker tone. "Well, yes, I suppose I was." He chuckled and added, "I won't downplay how much this will hurt, then. It's chakra re-alignment, after all."

"I've noticed that, yeah."

"And have the will to pursue your strength, even so," Orochimaru murmured, and a startlingly warm hand rested on her back, almost as soothing to her nerves as that acknowledgment was to her anger. "Let us begin, then."

Sakura set her teeth into the bite-pad under her chin and closed her eyes. As ink traced over her shoulders and down her spine and wrenched harder and harder at her nerves and soul, she held tight to her purpose. She would have power, and she would never be ignored and set aside again.

(She would keep what was important to her safe.)

( _love them, love them, kill him.._.)

As the seal sank into her, burning like fire, the screams broke loose, layers of her self running together in the unified rush of pain. Orochimaru's voice followed her down into the dark.

"Everything will be well, Sakura."

It actually helped.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura and Orochimaru conclude their bargain, and their betrayal. Sasuke and Naruto do their best to catch Sakura as she falls out of this mission. Kind of adorable first-time ninja porn, also character death.

"Once more," Orochimaru told them.

Sakura nodded and wove her hands through the six seals for activation. She rocked on her toes as the interlocking seals spread over her back and shoulders roared to life with wild power that flooded her whole body. This time, at least, she was expecting the jumble of elemental "tastes" in it and they didn't dizzy her. She rode the upsurge, feeling her seal like a typhoon wind at her back. But this wind blew through her, poured out of her hands and feet, driving them against the floor and walls of the stone arena as she tumbled and flew, evading every one of the blades Kabuto threw. Her hands flickered through the seals for the Violent Wave, faster than she could have even seen before, and water crashed down where he'd been.

Sakura spun on her toes, tracking him, holding the inrush of energy with a light hand, balancing it against the part of her that still tasted of her own spirit. This was like playing a game of shoji against Shikamaru and playing the koto at the same time. She could do it, though. She could do it.

She saw Kabuto gathering himself for another attack, caught the faint haze at the corner of her eye that often showed up when someone laid illusion on her, and leapt just as a wire trap snapped down. "Kai!" The dispelling swept the arena, blowing away the seeming of rock Kabuto had hidden himself behind, and she touched down, braced a foot, and drove herself towards him like the wind.

The hint of _something coming_ was barely a crinkle down her nerves, barely a suspicion, but in this state it was enough. She turned in mid-air, arms crossed and guarded by her kunai, and Orochimaru's snake lashing toward her back got a knife in the mouth instead. The force of the attack drove her back against the stone wall, bruisingly, but she got her feet under her in time and her body held, coiled, absorbed the force. Hidden for that one still moment, she exchanged herself with blinding speed for a loose stone and drove her knife toward Orochimaru's unguarded back.

Kabuto caught it on his glove-guard, just short.

"Good," Orochimaru purred, eyes alight, and Sakura knew her own were glittering back at him. She could feel the air on her bared teeth. She loved this, that he would expect her, _prefer_ her, to attack him from behind, to test him exactly the way he tested her.

It took a moment to draw herself back and disengage from Kaubto, and a longer one to make herself fold her hands into the Horse and send her seal to sleep once more.

"Very good," Orochimaru approved as Kabuto straightened and Sakura sagged against the wall behind her, wobbly with the sudden release of that pressure on her own chakra. "Because of its construction, you will always require hand seals to activate this, but that seems a minor drawback all things considered. I think we may call this operation a success." He folded his arms, smugly pleased.

Sakura nodded. "It doesn't give me any _skill_ I don't already have," she reported wearily, "and the effort of controlling the nature energy is very wearing. My absolute endurance is still the upper limit on this; it's hard to feel my strength depleting directly, too, I have to pay attention to the stability of the balance I'm holding. But while I can hold out, everything is stronger, faster, clearer."

"Your abilities are boosted at least threefold," Kabuto confirmed, brushing himself off and straightening his tools back into their usual impeccable array. "That was more than the final test subject achieved."

Sakura hauled herself upright and stretched; the release took some getting used to, but she thought she could see already how to balance her new strength, its duration, and the weakness after it in her strategy.

"So?" Orochimaru cocked his head at her. "Are you satisfied?"

Sakura straightened her shoulders and nodded. "I am. Have you decided where you want me to show myself, to draw Naruto and Sasuke in?"

"Hmm." He tapped a finger against his lips. "It should be something showy, of course." He smiled slowly. "I'd thought to send you against one of Akatsuki. Kabuto might enjoy the chance to kill his old master, and Sasori's grudge has become wearing."

Sakura gave him a skeptical look. "And how were you planning to get one of them alone? Every mission of theirs we've spied on was a pair." And even with the seal she wasn't about to take on two of Akatsuki, not with only Kabuto to back her up.

"Unfortunately, yes. They're getting more consistent about that. A shame." Orochimaru waved it off. "Well, then. Two renegades from Cloud seem to have crossed through Hot Springs Country to our eastern border and be harassing our border post. At least one of them is jounin; Karajin Ryouta, if I'm not mistaken. Vanquishing them should be a good debut for you."

Sakura snorted, amused by this phrasing of it. "I'll want another week or two to train, if I'm taking a jounin plus helpers. But that should do."

"Excellent. I'll have a letter sent to the Daimyou, then, he's been getting really quite tedious about the matter." Orochimaru swept out the door, leaving Sakura mouthing "tedious?" at his back with raised brows.

"Orochimaru-sama does like to apply all his attention to his researches," Kabuto murmured, but Sakura thought she could hear a thread of laughter under his bland respect.

"He should pay better attention to politics, or else get someone who can," she said firmly. "Or even he won't stay 'Otokage' long."

"Well, perhaps that will be you, Sakura-san." While she was processing the combination of pleasure and wariness that answered his suggestion, his recognition, he added, "You know, you might be able to activate your seal without the hand seals."

( _What agenda of his will that serve?_ )

( _useful for when I turn on them_ )

Sakura crossed her arms and leaned back against the stone wall, eyeing him curiously, not shaking her head like she wanted to a little from the echoing under-persona thoughts. "In time, I suppose. I know a technique one is very familiar with can be formed without seals eventually."

Kabuto smiled. "Ah, but even before that, if your control is fine enough, you can form the seals in your spirit without using your hands."

Sakura whistled softly. "Seriously, no wonder you make such a good spy." He laughed.

"Indeed."

Did Kabuto think her loyal enough to Orochimaru, now, that this would serve and not harm his master? Or was this another step in Kabuto's own game? Always that question, with him.

Well, there was no way to know but to play it out.

"So I need to form the seals without actually forming them?" Sakura frowned, thoughtful. "That... makes sense, actually. I suppose familiarity couldn't make the hand motions unnecessary, otherwise. I hadn't quite thought that out before."

"All you've ever needed is a little pointer here and there," Kabuto murmured.

"I'll do my best to justify your confidence," she returned, meeting his eyes. They gleamed.

"I'm sure you will, Sakura-san."

* * *

The shinobi at the eastern border post were definitely glad to see her.

"The second one isn't jounin rank, I don't think," Tomita, the chuunin in charge of the post, reported to her, "but he's still strong, especially with illusions. Two caravans have been plundered because we just couldn't find them."

"That should make things interesting," Sakura murmured, turning over possibilities in her head. "I understand that Karajin is a taijutsu specialist?" That was a strong team, if they worked together at all. She had to assume they did.

"Yes, ma'am."

There were advantages, Sakura reflected with some amusement, to Orochimaru's habit of giving her a new team every month or so. Many of the genin and chuunin of Sound knew her or knew of her from a partner.

"...know about her?" one of the post's two genin was whispering to the other, behind her, in fact. "They call her Orochimaru-sama's left hand!"

The rage and thirst for strength in her heart drank that in and purred.

"All right," she said at last. "We need to take out Karajin's partner first. How long can you keep Karajin busy for, while I stalk the illusionist?"

Tomita's mouth twisted. "Five minutes, at the most."

"I'll organize some traps and maneuvers for you to use against him, then. That should be long enough." She pulled a fresh sheet of paper across his desk and started sketching the ground in front of the border crossing. "Once I've dealt with the partner, fall back to here."

"That far?" Tomita stared at her. "Haruno-san... we won't be able to support you at all from that far back."

She smiled tightly. "Don't worry about that."

She could tell he wanted to argue, but in the end he kept his mouth shut and only offered a few insights on the terrain around the post and the border, and showed her to her room himself.

The next caravan came two days later, not coincidentally one from Fire Country, returning from Lightning Country and still trailing its Leaf escort. Since Hot Springs had dissolved their village, no one trusted local escort across that land. And even traveling through a country whose village one's own village was at odds with was better than a country where no one was keeping the bandits in check.

Sakura perched on the gate pillars that marked the border, observing the caravan as it approached. She'd wagered with herself on just how Karajin's partner was disguising himself or the target caravans. He almost had to be hiding in the wagons themselves; the longer someone had to weave an illusion, after all, the more strongly it took and the less chance of anyone pulling free of it.

Which was why Sakura crouched with her eyes closed as the caravan passed under her, hands in the Snake, watching her own chakra. The one skill that using her new seal had sharpened fastest was sensing the flows and small differences in her own chakra, and, sure enough, she felt the brush of another influence against her as her ears told her the third wagon passed under the pillars. She traced the touch back, narrowing down the location of its source slowly, feeling like she was squinting to pick out details at dusk, and wishing she had Sasuke's eyes present to do this faster.

( _Don't think about that._ )

But there. There it was, the source of the subtle disturbance, which she was sure she wouldn't see if she opened her eyes. Not without performing a dispelling, and that would make her far too obvious. Instead she waited, concentrating, following the trace she'd found.

The moment the caravan passed all the way into Sound, the ground under the front wagon exploded. _Now,_ Sakura thought fiercely at Tomita and his team. And, indeed, she heard them coming, heard them ordering Karajin to halt, heard the Cloud-nin's laugh.

Felt the flare of chakra from her target, brushing over her own as he reached out to confuse their senses.

 _Now_. She dropped down from the pillar without opening her eyes, feeling the tingle of exhilaration and terror as the world whirled around her in un-solid flashes of chakra. She suddenly had far more respect for the discipline the Hyuuga must exercise to fight like this. She had to open her eyes at the last moment, to land safely, but she had burned the location of her target into her memory and came out of her landing crouch with an unhesitating thrust at, apparently, thin air.

The world wavered just faintly, and there was a shinobi on the end of her knife, bleeding and glaring at her. Sakura bared her teeth and whirled, heel smashing into his temple.

Few genjutsu specialists trained to fight without the aid of their illusions. Their loss.

"Get the caravan under cover!" she ordered as she sprang down from the wagon and bounded toward the whirl of combat where Karajin was throwing Tomita and the genin, now including one from Leaf as well, around with careless ease. She set her feet at the edge of the fight, wove her hands through the activation of her seal, and shouted, hoarse with the rush of strength, "Get back!"

The battered Sound ninja sprang away from Karajin, Tomita hauling the Leaf-nin with them as she'd directed him to, and Sakura launched herself forward.

It felt like the world should blur with the speed of her strike, his guard, her rebound, the whirl of blows before they broke apart. But everything was clear, almost etched in her vision: Karajin's surprise, the narrowing of his eyes, the way he set his center to take her on seriously.

Not that she was such a fool as to face a taijutsu specialist head-on. She feinted another rush only to veer aside, hands flashing, and slapped her hand down to initiate the Rock Pillar Prison. While Karajin was busy breaking the pillars, she sank herself into the power of her mixed chakra and wove an illusion. Sight, sound, scent, touch, all of them told Karajin that she was not where she was—now ten degrees to the right, now fourteen to the left, always shifting. Exaltation surged through her as she completed the technique; this was more powerful, more complete, than anything she'd ever have been able to do before. And once the illusion closed around him it was easy, so easy, to slide past his misaimed strike and drive her knuckles into his throat. Cartilage crunched under her hand, and his eyes snapped to focus on her for one breathless moment before he attempted to inhale and passed out.

Sakura stood over him for one moment, savoring her victory. But she could feel her endurance starting to wane, and folded her hands through the release of her seal before it got any worse. She'd timed it right, this time, she thought, taking deep slow breaths as the world-energy flowed past without touching her again. This time she didn't fall down.

So she was on her feet and only a little worn-looking when the caravaners crept out of hiding, starting to chatter with relief. Tomita and his genin were approaching from the other side, the Leaf-nin trailing behind them.

"Um, shinobi-san," the caravan master started hesitantly, bobbing a bow to her, "the body..."

"Yes." Sakura waved a hand at one of the Sound genin who trotted over to haul the illusionist's body out of the wagon. "We'll take care of them." Orochimaru would want both, no doubt. She mustered a smile for the caravan master. "I'm sorry you were troubled by this. I think I can assure you the rest of your route is safe, though." She nodded at the Leaf genin, who nodded warily back.

Tomita's genin had clearly spent some of the fight filling his ears with tales of her—also as she'd directed. The man was no one she knew personally, which would make things easier. He'd have no personal stake in trying to persuade her back to Konoha this moment, and had just had a vivid demonstration of why he didn't want to try anything other than persuasion. She could almost see the moment he reached the decision to let well enough alone and just report when he got home.

Tomita saluted her, crisp and correct. "Thank you, Haruno-san!"

His tone startled her. It took her a moment to realize that this wasn't just putting on a good face for outsiders. Everything, from the straightness of his spine to the glow in his eyes, said that this was real.

Real respect.

The tautness of her old bitterness eased another notch even as her thoughts jangled against each other.

( _Useful for keeping my cover in the end-game_.)

( _it's not right, not here..._ )

* * *

"That will do very nicely," Orochimaru said, rather distractedly as he prodded at Karajin's body with a chakra probe and scribbled another note. He finally looked up and cocked his head at Sakura, where she leaned against the lab wall. "And what will you do, once I have Sasuke and perhaps Uzumaki as well in my hands, and our bargain is ended?"

Sakura hesitated. "I've... been thinking about that."

His smile was knowing. "Hmm?"

"I haven't done badly out of my time here," she admitted. "Even aside from the seal. Hidden Sound respects me." And it was very sweet, that respect, that deference, the speed with which any Sound-nin under her command obeyed her. It tasted sweet to every part of her, and the aftertaste of wrongness in her heart was easy enough to hide.

"So?" he murmured. "Would you swear yourself to Sound, after all? To me?"

Sakura returned his gaze for a long moment and finally nodded. She stood away from the wall and touched her fist to her heart in salute, straight-backed and on her feet. "I offer myself as a shinobi of Sound, and my life into the hands of Sound's Master."

A flash of annoyance broke through the lurking amusement in his eyes at the title she used, but Sakura just looked back blandly. She wasn't calling the village leader for a country the size of Fire's _peninsula_ Kage. In the end, Orochimaru's lips quirked, acknowledging the fact. "I accept you as a shinobi of Otogakure," he murmured. "Your life will not be spent lightly."

Kabuto looked up from across the room, where he was working on the illusionist's body, with a cheerful smile. "I'm so glad you chose to stay, Sakura-san. Welcome!"

That open, friendly smile sent a chill down her spine that was harder to hide than her gut's protest over swearing to Sound. "Thank you, Kabuto-senpai," she answered softly, wondering yet again what his game was and what her place was in it.

( _We'll all know soon._ )

( _soon_ )

She wondered how Naruto and Sasuke would react to the news that should be reaching Konoha in just another week or two.

* * *

" _She's what?!_ "

Sasuke stood very still as Naruto surged to the edge of the Hokage's desk, feeling ice settling in his stomach. "Are you telling us," he said, very evenly, "that Sakura has been with Orochimaru these last eight months? That was the undercover mission she left on?"

"Yes," Tsunade answered, sober.

"Are you all crazy?!" Naruto howled, and Sasuke was glad because that was just what he wanted to say and Naruto could say it louder.

"She volunteered and planned the infiltration herself," Tsunade snapped. "She was working with Intelligence, she knew just how much pressure Orochimaru was putting on the village."

 _To find me. She did it for me._ The thoughts weighed down on Sasuke like lead, and pressed out the rough whisper, "Why?"

Kakashi finally stirred by the shelves he'd been leaning against since they got here, apparently reading. "Because her team means more to her than anything else, and she has the courage to act on that."

"No one else could do the job as well," Tsunade added as Naruto started to round on Kakashi, bristling. "Her cover... well. Anyone looking at it from the outside would find it very convincing."

"What cover?" Naruto demanded, voice hard.

Tsunade looked back at him levelly. "The cover of a very skilled shinobi who nevertheless has very little power, teamed up with an acknowledged genius and the host who controls the chakra of the Nine-tails."

Naruto flinched back, eyes wide. "But... but Sakura doesn't..." He spun around to stare at Kakashi, openly appealing. "She doesn't, does she?"

Kakashi reached out a long arm and whapped Naruto over the head with his book. "Idiot," he pronounced. "Of course Sakura doesn't resent you. Either of you. She loves you. But," he added as Naruto visibly melted into a puddle of relief, "anyone who didn't know you all, and know you well, would find it easy to believe she did. Especially someone as obsessed with power as Orochimaru."

That made sense, even though Sasuke felt like his brain was frozen, his thoughts crystallized. Finally one thought made it through that felt important and he cleared this throat. "Why are you telling us this now?"

There was compassion in the Fifth's eyes as she met his. "Because you two are part of the end of this. The bargain she struck, as her cover, was that Orochimaru would give her the power he once promised you; in return, she would bring you to him. We've just received a report that Sakura has surfaced, acting openly for Hidden Sound. For Orochimaru's consumption, the story is that Naruto, hearing this, drags you off with him to reclaim your teammate. That's what Orochimaru is counting on, and what Sakura has been preparing him to think all this time."

"In reality of course," Kakashi put in, propping an elbow on a shelf. "You'll be the front of the extraction and execution team. The three of you together should be able to kill Orochimaru, and there will be a support team shadowing you to help get you out after, while our largest force strikes for his major bases as soon as his death is confirmed."

Naruto was settling down as they listened to this. "All right, then," he half-growled. "You should have told us sooner, but I guess this is okay."

Sasuke listened to the whispers _eight months_ and _Orochimaru_ running round and round his head, and wasn't so sure. "Is she... all right?" he finally asked, low. "Do we know?"

"We won't know for sure until you get there," Kakashi said quietly.

Naruto frowned again, ferociously, looking back and forth between Kakashi and Sasuke. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Kakashi and Tsunade exchanged a long look and Kakashi stood. "Come on down to Intelligence, and we'll get you briefed."

 _Sakura_ was the only thought that came through the jumble in Sasuke's head clearly. The rest was just a slow twisting in his heart, where the friendship he'd acknowledged and the tenderness he hadn't quite put a hot, cutting edge on his fear. _Sakura!_

* * *

Orochimaru was deeply amused as he read over the message scroll. "They're racketing through the south of the country like a charging boar through underbrush."

"That's Naruto," Sakura muttered, arms crossed. "So, how are we doing this? Ambush?"

"Of sorts, of sorts. You and I and Kabuto will go to meet our impetuous young shinobi, I think. Quite openly. Kabuto can take the young Uchiha undamaged, I imagine. I wish to see what Uzumaki is made of." He turned from his pacing through his shadowy main hall and captured her gaze, smooth and hypnotic as one of his snakes. "And will you be able to fight your former partner beside me? Sakura?"

Sakura looked back at him, silent for a moment. "You're the one who gave me power. And..." she looked aside, "a place. A real one, fit for a real shinobi." She lifted her chin. "It's the place I chose. I'll stand here." It was all the truth, except the last part, and even that was true enough the way she meant it. She would stand here, because her duty demanded it.

( _and strike from here_ )

"Excellent," Orochimaru purred. "Let us prepare ourselves and be on our way, then."

Sakura bowed her head and went to pack her gear.

* * *

All it had taken was one message, left in the rooms Naruto and Sasuke had reserved, to bring them here, to this clearing in the southern forests of Sound Country. Sakura stood just behind Orochimaru's shoulder, controlling her breathing carefully. She couldn't control the pounding of her heart, and only hoped that it seemed reasonable to the two men next to her.

"Sakura!" Naruto took a step toward her across the clearing, and halted as his eyes flickered up to her forehead protector and the device of Sound on it. They hadn't expected that, then. ( _Good; it will help him react better._ ) "Sakura? What...?" He looked genuinely lost, and Sakura held hard to her persona, to eight months of practice. They made her voice convincingly hard when she answered.

"Sound gave me real work, and a real place. Should it be a surprise that I swore to them?"

"To _that_?" Naruto hollered, absolutely incensed, pointing at Orochimaru.

Sakura flicked a glance at her Master, gauging how soon he would move. "He understands me." She looked back at them, cool, and caught Sasuke's eye for just a sliver of an instant. His mouth tightened and Orochimaru made an interested sound.

"Hmm. Perhaps I left off courting you too early, Sasuke-kun?" He smiled slowly and opened a hand, palm up. "My offer is still good, as Sakura can tell you."

Sakura didn't miss the faint crook of his fingers in Kabuto's direction, though, and she took one last breath for balance, courage, hope, and sank her mind into the concentration Kaubto had taught her, pressing her very soul into the forms to awaken her seal. Now. It had to be now. Dog. Monkey. Slowly, feeling her nerves creaking, Horse.

"I think I have power enough already," she heard Sasuke say, distantly.

"Against Itachi?" Sasuke stiffened and Orochimaru chuckled. "Indeed, I could tell you a great deal about that man."

Monkey. Serpent.

"Why?" Naruto challenged, suspicious. "You took Sakura away from us! What do you want with Sasuke?"

Orochimaru sighed. "Ah, I should have taken you three years ago. You didn't question so much, then."

Naruto's eyes narrowed, starting to burn. "You don't want anything good, then," he growled, hands slamming together, and two Shadow Clones appeared, leaping to form a Rasengan.

 _Wait for it. Wait for it. Hold on._ Sakura set her teeth, sweat starting along her hairline and trickling down her back as she held on to the shape of the Serpent in her soul. The next seal would be the last. She unfocused her eyes, watching all of them, watching Kabuto especially.

Orochimaru eyed Naruto with interest. "Mmm. That's nothing I haven't already learned from that buffoon, but I suppose there might be more to you. We shall see."

Sasuke's eyes were red, piercing and watchful. Naruto was growling as he crouched to drive the Rasengan forward. Kabuto was relaxed and smiling. Orochimaru laughed and crooked a forefinger at her, not looking around as Naruto started to move. "Sakura."

 _Horse._

Power roared through her like a river bursting a dam and Sakura drove a spear hand hardened with chakra, with all the strength and speed the seal could give her, straight through Orochimaru's spine and out his chest, blood flooding hot around her arm.

Naruto shouted, Sasuke vanished, she caught Kaubto's hands lifting in the corner of her eye. She punched the base of Orochimaru's skull, spinning around as his body jolted off her hand, using every bit of speed she had to form a Fire Wall to meet Kaubto...

Who leapt back.

They all froze, the Rasengan blowing into nothing as Naruto plowed to a stop. Sakura held the Wall just short of release, poised.

"Ah," Orochimaru's hoarse voice broke the stillness, and Sakura's eyes widened with tangled horror and frustration and guilt. "I see I didn't quite have you long enough. I salute your cunning, little kunoichi. I thought I had you when you swore to me."

 _Not before that?_ But Sakura pushed the thought down, pushed all her thoughts down under the needs of this moment, and snapped, "Naruto. Make sure he dies. Sasuke, Kabuto."

"Already there," Sasuke's voice came from the trees above Kabuto, and a rush of gratitude that he remembered her strategy-shapes so well, and still trusted them, shook her.

"Naruto," Sakura repeated, husky, when he didn't move. She could hear the breath he let out.

"Yeah. Okay." His voice was tight, but she knew he'd do what he had to. She knew it, down in the heart of her, where she was burning and aching.

Orochimaru's laugh was wet and raspy. "I salute you, indeed. Sakura."

Despite all the control she could muster, a shudder raked through her and one word wrenched out. "Yes." She knew.

There was a faint, silken sound, and she gave thanks that medical ninja were thoroughly trained in giving mercy. The open glow of Naruto's chakra washed past her and a burst of flame followed, actinic and scorching. "Done," Naruto said, rough.

Kabuto, who hadn't moved yet, eyes locked with Sakura's, sighed. "Ahh. That was a waste, Sakura-san. There were years of use left in him."

"My game had to end before yours," she said, low. She was starting to feel the strain of balancing her seal's chakra; how was this going to end?

"So I see." He smiled and spread his hands. "Well, so it goes. But, you realize, this leaves you alone to face the greater threat."

"Itachi?" Sasuke asked, voice as harsh as Naruto's.

Kabuto laughed. "Oh, goodness no. Well, not in and of himself. No, no, _Akatsuki_. Orochimaru was one of them once, you know. He knew some of their plans." He sighed, sounding sincerely rueful. "I don't think I'd quite gotten all of what he knew. It really is a shame." He shrugged as if to set it aside. "Well, you're on your own against them, now, since I have no intention of standing in their way myself. Few of them would be of any interest to me; afterward... well, we'll see."

"You talk like you think you'll be getting free," Sasuke observed.

Kabuto smiled into Sakura's eyes, and she remembered that he'd been part of all those exercises to time her endurance under the seal. "You didn't find the location of the last remote base, Sakura-san," he said softly. "The one that holds most of the experimental subjects. The woman in charge won't let them go, you know, even with his death." An artful pause, and she could see exactly what was coming. "But I could free them."

After a stretched moment, trying to weigh morality against morality, as her control pulled tighter and tighter, Sakura said, thinly, "All right."

"Sakura!" Naruto stared at her. "He can't possibly escape all three of us! Interrogation can get it out of him."

Sakura shook her head, feeling time bleeding away, and with it her margin of survival. "It's about to be just two of you and a casualty, and he knows it. He'll keep his word on the deal. I think it's the best we'll get right now."

"Acute as always, Sakura-san," Kabuto murmured, and Sakura bared her teeth.

"If we ever meet again, I'll get something better out of you."

He gave her a genuine smile, dark and pleased, and bowed to her. "Afterward, then." And vanished.

Sakura let Fire Wall go, wove her hands through the release of her seal and sagged to her hands and knees, panting.

"Sakura!" It was Sasuke beside her, holding her shoulders. "Naruto, get the flare up to call the backup squad in!"

Fire burst again, far overhead, and Sakura hauled her head up to look at her teammates. Her... her friends. Yes. The ones she'd done this to protect, and that had been her desire, her free choice, her need. Even though eight months whispered that it could only have been misguided guilt or the need to prove herself, mustn't it?

Naruto flung himself down beside them, eyes wide and worried. "Sakura, are you okay? What's wrong?" Even as he spoke his hands were passing down the line of her spine, and he frowned deeply. "You're completely drained, what did you _do_?"

"Seal," she panted. "Nature energy. Hard to control." And then she laughed and flung her arms around their shoulders, one still red with Orochimaru's blood. "Finally. It's finally you... you came." Her certainty that they always would pulled hard against her whispering knowledge that they only would because they understood nothing of her, pulled like scar tissue and she gasped with the inner pain. She freed her hands, swaying until they caught her shoulders again, and formed the first seal to undo the Heart In a Net technique, struggling to remember the second through the growing pain.

"Haruno!" Miuhara was suddenly beside her, dropping from the trees with a whole squad of Leaf-nin, and he grabbed her hands. "Wait, not yet!"

"Have to," she gasped. "It's pulling loose anyway!"

"Shit." He stared at her in the babbling swirl of the squad splitting, some dashing on. After Kabuto, she thought fuzzily. Of course. "All right," he said at last and grabbed for Naruto. "Uzumaki! You're a healer. Listen up. She's been under a neural realignment technique for the past eight months, and we have to release it _now_. You'll have to stabilize her."

"I don't know how to do work that fine!" Naruto exclaimed, a little panicked, but he knelt beside her, hands reaching out anyway.

"That's why you listen to me. Uchiha, hold on to her. Haruno. You understand this is going to be more work for you?"

"Need to re-key on my own?" she gritted through her teeth through the nasty, tearing ache. "Yeah. Just... leave me with them. Be okay."

"I'm taking your word for it, and you'd damn well better be right. Release it now. Dog, Boar, Dog, Horse, Bird." For a moment, breaking through the intensity of his orders, he grinned. "Go ahead and scream if you need to. This will hurt."

Sakura formed the seals, one after another, almost mindless, focusing only on the shape of them. And as her hands folded into the Bird, something snapped loose inside her and lashed through her mind like fire.

She did scream.

When she could make the sounds around her make sense again, Miuhara was speaking low and quick to Naruto, talking him through one seal after another, and her hands were clenched bone-grindingly tight on Sasuke's shoulders. Sasuke held her tight, one leg hooked over hers to keep her from thrashing out from under Naruto's hands. At least she thought that was why. Her mind felt bruised.

"All right," Miuhara said at last. "That's as good as we can do for now." He drew a long breath. "She says the two of you can help her re-establish her normal pattern of thought and response, so you'll need to stay with her. I'll get a few of the squad to escort you to a secure site." He stood. "Anything you can do to remind her who she usually is, you do it, understand?"

Sasuke's arms tightened around her. "We understand. Come on, help me get her upright," he added over her head.

Sakura wobbled to her feet, an arm over each of their shoulders, looking around at the quiet bustle of the squad. "Feel like a dishrag," she panted. "With a headache."

"You've earned it, so just let us take you somewhere safe for a little, okay?" Naruto looked torn between scowling at her ferociously and giving her puppy-dog eyes. The alternation made her giggle.

"Kay."

Three of the squad closed in around them and Sasuke said quietly, "Let's go."

* * *

By the time they reached the nearest town, Sakura had her breath back, though she still ached all over. She was very glad to duck in the window of the house their escort directed them to.

"Food first," Naruto declared. "You drained yourself way too hard, and I want a _look_ at that seal."

"Bath first," Sakura countered, trying not to look too hard at what still spattered her chest and arm.

Sasuke rolled his eyes, reassuringly normal. "You get food," he told Naruto. "I'll make sure she doesn't drown before you get back."

He seemed to take that seriously, too, helping her get undressed and insisting she sit down before he pulled off her sandals. "I'm not really injured," she protested.

"I think you are, actually." He touched the base of her skull, very lightly. "Up here. That Miuhara guy said you'd been under a technique that affects your mind and nerves, and you said it was pulling loose. Besides," he set her sandals aside and tugged off his own shirt, "Kakashi-sensei said to do whatever we could for you, on the way home, and not to let you overextend yourself. He's done this before, right?"

Sakura's mouth pulled into a crooked smile. "Yeah. He probably makes a better senpai than Kabuto." But thinking about that made her head hurt more, so she ignored Sasuke's choking sound and concentrated on getting all her tools out of her pants so she could throw them in the wash.

Sasuke was quiet for a few breaths, but seemed willing to follow her lead. "Come on, the water's hot now. I'll get your back."

They were both halfway through scrubbing down by the time Naruto go back with what looked like half a kitchen. "Hey, no fair!" he told Sasuke, who was indeed washing Sakura's back at the moment, but he was grinning.

"You can get her hair," Sasuke told him. "She hasn't said so, but I think that headache's still there."

Sakura blushed. "Okay, okay, I probably did hurt something, but seriously—"

"You hush," Naruto scolded her, and she blinked. He gave her a medic-scowl. "I can't do much about healing the actual nerves yet, but I can sure take care of bruising and muscle damage. So eat this and quit arguing."

Sakura took the steamed bun he put in her hand and ate, blinking back sudden tears at that rough, straightforward care while Naruto hopped from foot to foot getting out of his clothes.

She hadn't cried in eight months.

Naruto's fingers really did feel good, moving over her skull, draining away little bits of heat and pressure until it didn't hurt when he worked in some shampoo. "Thanks," she sighed, as she reached for the sprayer to rinse off. "That did help."

"Eat some more," he told her, and when she glanced over her shoulder he was blushing a little.

"Water's ready," Sasuke said from the other side of the room.

Sakura sighed with pleasure as they sank into the steaming tub and giggled when Naruto pointedly put a glass of cold water and a plate of dumplings beside her. "Tsunade-sama has been training you well." She leaned back and asked, softly. "Tell me about it. Talk to me. About the village and everything." She needed to remember.

"It's really cool," Naruto started, only a little hesitantly. "I kind of suck at the chemistry, so she finally gave up on antidotes and taught me how to cleanse blood with chakra techniques instead. I won't be able to do Mystic Palms for another year, she says, but _I_ think she's hedging. I bet I can do it in another six months!"

"Your control isn't good enough yet," Sasuke observed, dampeningly, and Naruto glowered.

"So I'll use Shadow Clones for that too!"

"I'll look forward to hearing what the Fifth has to say about that."

Sakura sipped her water and nibbled her dumplings and let herself float in the familiarity of their bickering, of Naruto's boasting which wasn't just boasts any more, of Sasuke's dry, quiet humor. It warmed her, like the water did, deep inside. She could feel her heart finally relaxing.

And that was when she completely dissolved into tears.

Naruto and Sasuke left off their argument over whether Jiraiya was a more annoying teacher than Kakashi, and gathered in around her at once. Naruto just held her and made really kind of funny soothing noises while Sasuke rubbed her back, slow and quiet.

"I liked it," she wrenched out past the sobs, past the unsteady ache deep inside. "I hated it, I hated him, but by the end I liked being there, I liked that he wanted me, he respected me, I hate this!"

"He was good at finding what you wanted and using it," Sasuke murmured. "It isn't your fault."

"Yeah, look how long you went, and you still did everything you needed to," Naruto put in, anxious. "I mean, he never corrupted you, not for real, and that had to be really, really hard! It's okay."

That made her cry some more, but she was laughing a little too. Naruto really was good at seeing to the heart. And Sasuke... Sasuke understood.

"Come on," Sasuke said, gentler than she thought she'd ever heard him. "Let's get out before we really do drown."

They didn't seem to want to let her out of arm's reach, now, which made drying off a bit comical, but that was okay. She wanted to be close. When they spread out the futons and lay down, she was glad to be held again.

 _They're my team. They love me, and I love them. It's okay again._ She pressed closer against Naruto and tugged shyly on Sasuke's wrist, and made a contented sound when he slid up snugly against her back. It felt good, they felt solid and made her feel solid too, and, oh wow, Sasuke's hands felt really good rubbing her shoulders. She sighed happily and it was the most natural thing in the world to lift her head and brush her lips against Naruto's.

Naruto made a slightly startled sound, but he kissed her back, shy and soft.

"Sure you're ready?" Sasuke asked against her shoulder, and she buried her head in Naruto's chest and laughed, suddenly remembering their last year at the Academy, and the pedantic recommendations in their textbook for how to handle "intimacy within a field team".

"Textbook," she managed to gasp, and that set Naruto off too. Sasuke just snorted at both of them. When she'd recovered a little she leaned her head back against Sasuke's shoulder and said, softly. "Thank you. Yeah. This is a good time, I think."

"Mm. I think so too." He slid his hands down her body and spread them across her stomach, and her breath caught at the little rush of heat between her legs. "Naruto?"

"Yeah," Naruto answered, husky, and bent his head to nuzzle the arch of her neck.

It felt good, so good, to feel their hands on her, to feel their skin under her palms, to know she was wanted and they were hers and it was all going to be okay. All of their hands were calloused, from knives and wire, but Naruto's were warm on her breasts and Sasuke's fingers sliding carefully between her legs made her gasp. She tightened her arms around Naruto and pulled him down to kiss her, wet and open-mouthed, breath coming deeper as Sasuke made a satisfied sound and rubbed his fingers against her.

She freed her mouth at last to gasp, "I want..." and Sasuke left off mouthing her shoulder and said, husky, "Yeah, just let me..." His fingers slid back further and she moaned as two pressed into her. Sasuke just about purred and slid his fingers free, reaching under the curve of her rear this time to press three in. That stretched a bit, but it felt good too. Sakura wrapped her leg around Naruto's hip and rocked against him, panting; well, so was he, and she liked the feel of his arms locked around her. She shivered when Sasuke nibbled on her ear and murmured, "Ready?"

"Very," she said, fervently, and Sasuke reached forward, and she heard Naruto gasp as Sasuke guided him against her. When she looked up, Naruto's eyes were so wide she had to smile at him and ask, a little teasing, "Ready?"

"Yeah," Naruto whispered, and that made her feel warm all the way through. And then he pushed against her, biting his lip, and the solid feeling of him inside her made her press closer, breathless. "Oh."

"Okay?" Sasuke asked, softly, hands kneading her lower back, stroking over her thighs, and she nodded. "Yeah. Mm, more." Naruto gasped a quick laugh and pushed in, and she moaned openly; it felt good. So good, to have them both pressed up against her, all of them moving together. When Sasuke's fingers slid between her folds again she shuddered with the tighter twist of pleasure. "Oh... oh yes." Naruto was rocking against her faster, kissing her hot and open and breathless, and she kissed back, liking it when he moaned, jerking hard against her.

"Fuck," Naruto muttered. "That was... um." Sasuke laughed. "Good thing there are two of us." Naruto stuck out his tongue and Sakura laughed too, a little light-headed, and it really was funny as they fumbled around a little, and then Sasuke was sliding into her instead and oh that felt good. She arched in their arms, and smiled up at Naruto, and he grinned back, just a little mischievous. When he bent down to kiss her breasts, open-mouthed, hot and wet, she arched harder. "Ohh..." Someone's fingers were rubbing her firmly, and Sasuke was thrusting deep into her, and it all made her body feel like it should be glowing, hotter and hotter.

She gasped when the heat in her flashed like fire and rushed through her veins, and Sasuke groaned abruptly against her shoulder. It felt so _good_ , the solidness of him inside her, and she jerked her hips hard to get more of that.

Suddenly she was past the crest, and all the sensation was too much. She grabbed for, yes, it was Naruto's wrist to still his fingers and buried her head against his shoulder, panting as Sasuke shuddered against her back. "Oh. Oh wow." Finally, they were all still again, pressed up against each other.

"That was... really good," Naruto murmured against her hair. "I mean, um. Thanks."

Sakura giggled. "Thank you too. Both of you." This was new. It wasn't just the past; right here and now, her team cared for her and wanted her. And she loved them back. It settled into her mind, solid and soothing.

Now, now she could think about going home.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura has to debrief and deal with the backlash of her time at Orochimaru's side. Fortunately, Naruto and Sasuke are there for her. Once that settles, though, Tsunade has to deal with the resistance of the Elders to promoting the three of them. Drama, Angst, Fluff.

"All right," Kimiko, her attending Intelligence medic, declared, handing Sakura back her shirt. "You're clear. No seals or techniques that would turn you, no sleepers that I can find, and you're impressively healed from Heart In a Net considering that you just about ripped it out by the roots. Have I mentioned how stupid that was?"

"This is the fifth time," Sakura sighed as she ducked her head through her shirt collar.

"Remember it," Kimiko directed firmly. "Hokage-sama?"

"Mmm." Tsunade frowned at her, arms crossed. "I still don't like that new seal of yours. It could kill you far too easily. By all rights it should be named a forbidden technique."

Sakura made a face. "Do you want to try to take it off?" She really didn't look forward to that at all. Besides... well, never mind.

"No, I suppose not." Sakura tried to ignore her leap of pleasure at those words as Tsunade ran a diagnostic palm over her shoulders again. "The surgery to sink this into you was very thorough, and getting it out would be even chancier than taking off that one of Sasuke's. Besides," her lips quirked, "you don't want to let it go, do you?"

Sakura winced a little. "It's not... I mean, it's just..."

Tsunade laid a hand on her shoulder. "Sakura. It's all right to like being strong, you know. That's what makes us all keep moving forward. You've demonstrated pretty conclusively that you want that strength to protect the village. I'm not worried."

Sakura bent her head. "Thank you, Tsunade-sama," she said softly, feeling another small band of fear loosen from around her chest. She looked up with a tiny smile. "You heal hearts too, I guess."

"Ah, go on with you." Tsunade gave her a little shove. "If Kimiko's cleared you, you're ready for the _fun_ part." Both medics gave her alarmingly cheerful and toothy smiles and chorused, "Paperwork!"

Sakura contemplated this with a sinking stomach. "...you're sure you don't want to poke at the seal a little more?"

* * *

_...It was at this point that I first started acting as a mission commander for a variety of Sound ninja, both genin and chuunin. I suspected, after the first two missions with entirely different teams, that Orochimaru was using my own experience to help train the Sound-nin to a higher standard; most of them did not possess the sophistication or training one would expect from an established village and tended to rely too heavily on their martial skills alone._

Sakura put her pen down and shook out her hand vigorously. In some ways, this was an easy section, a lot easier than putting her sparring with Kabuto into words. And then, in some ways, it might be the hardest. She had liked most of her teams, at least once she'd kicked a few asses and they knew to take her seriously. She thought most of them had liked and respected her, in the end. After all, she'd helped them. She'd made the missions a success and pointed them in a professional direction.

And she'd also killed their leader. If she ever met them again, they'd be completely within their rights, under the loose accords of the villages, to kill her. They might well try.

The part that actually troubled her was that she didn't mind too much. She didn't _like_ the thought; she'd like it a lot better if they all decided that Orochimaru had been a sucking leech of a madman and they were all better off without him! But if the Sound shinobi, many of whom had never lived in Orochimaru's personal base or seen his madness first hand, chose to blame her and seek revenge... well, that was their choice. She'd live with it.

And she could still look back and feel that she'd done a good job both ways: placing herself to kill Orochimaru after getting all the information about Sound that she could, and also doing her professional best to lead and improve the Sound shinobi under her command. She was... proud of them. Proud, even, of the skills they might be about to turn on her.

She was starting to wonder if this was what people really meant when they talked about Intelligence and twiddled a finger knowingly next to their temples.

* * *

Sakura took her chair in the incongruously bright, warm debriefing room in the basement of the Intelligence complex. She folded her arms tight over her stomach, and waited for today's first question.

"First of all, Haruno, are you sure you want Hatake Kakashi to be here for today's work?" Miuhara asked her as he pulled up his own chair on the other side of the table. "I know he was your jounin-sensei, but I have to tell you he can be pretty brutal when he's working on this side."

Sakura managed a small smile. "He could be pretty brutal as a teacher, too. I'm sure." She trusted Kakashi-sensei's judgment, and right now she felt very in need of some extra, trustable judgment. She was starting to doubt her own.

"All right then." Miuhara nodded and Kakashi-sensei propped himself quietly against the soft yellow wall just behind her shoulder and out of her sight. Typical, Sakura thought with irritated affection.

Miuhara was paging through the thick folder of her report, but it was her other debriefer, Hitomi, who asked, "So about Kabuto. You said he was acting for his own purposes all along; do you think he's going to take Sound for his own, now?"

Sakura shook her head, unhesitating. "No. I don't think he has any interest in leading or ruling, himself."

"What is he interested in, then? Research, like Orochimaru?"

Slowly, trying to put months of observations together, Sakura said, "The game. I think... I think that's all he really cares about. I think that's why he really stayed with Orochimaru, because Orochimaru played it too."

"Hmm." Miuhara frowned down at a page. "You said he defended Orochimaru without hesitation, at risk of his life, and yet was working against him the whole time."

"Yes. That's it exactly." Sakura leaned forward, chasing the thought, trying to make sense for herself as well as for them. "I think that was the challenge he set for himself. To do everything Orochimaru wanted of him, to protect him even, and still successfully betray him in the end."

Softly, Hitomi asked, "Like you did? Was that why you felt such a connection with him?"

Sakura flinched. "I..." She was quiet for a long breath, and finally whispered, "Yes."

"Was that any part in your reasoning, when you let him go?" Miuhara asked neutrally.

"No." That answer came to her quickly, surely, and she raised her head again. "No. That was plain calculation. I was running out of time, and if he could take me hostage he'd have a very strong position against Naruto and Sasuke. He offered something we wanted, too, and that tipped the balance."

Miuhara nodded. "Good. Now, you just said that Orochimaru played the game, too. In your report, you emphasized his implication, on dying, that he had never assumed you were loyal until very near the end. Can you expand on that?"

Sakura's arms tightened. "In retrospect, it's very clear," she said a little stiffly. "He probably always assumed I was an agent for Konoha. He... lured me. He showed approval for my apparent self-interest and eventually gave me a technique that is both very strong and does not control me. That seems contradictory, but all during the research process he was offering me bait. Leadership of teams; the respect of the Sound shinobi, especially as he appeared to trust me beside him; approval for every time I pushed back against him and for my planning abilities; my... my name."

"Your name?" Hitomi murmured, eyes sharp over her folded hands.

"He didn't call me by name, for a long time. It was always 'kunoichi'. But when..." she had to swallow, "when I _demanded_ more tests on the last version of the seal, more tests on other people, because I knew it would give me more time to gather intelligence on the bases, then he called me by name."

"And if he thought all along you were an agent of Konoha," Miuhara completed her logic coolly, "it follows that he was seeking to draw you into just that position, where you would be complicit with his atrocities. And he rewarded you for it."

"Yes," Sakura whispered, arms curling tighter. "And it worked."

"How so?" Miuhara asked, perfectly calm. "Do you have any intention of performing that kind of forbidden experiment?"

"Not that," she said roughly. "But I liked it! Even knowing what he was, what he was doing, when he recognized me, I felt..." She ran out of words and clenched her hands, frustrated.

Kakashi stirred against the wall. "You created your cover out of a part of yourself you don't usually show or let run free," he said quietly. "And Orochimaru saw that part and understood it, and showed approval for it." He paused and added, lower, "And that part of you meant it when you swore loyalty to him and to Sound."

"Yes." Sakura was curled in so tightly now she was bent over her knees, hot, furious tears dripping onto the fabric of her pants.

"Do you believe you will betray the Leaf?" Hitomi asked.

"No," Sakura said, rough and tight, but sure of that at least.

"Do you believe you would have stayed with him if he had not continued to seek Uchiha Sasuke's life?" Miuhara asked, gently.

That one froze Sakura for long, tight breaths. "I... in the Net... in the Net, yes," she whispered at last, shaking, eyes fixed on her knees wide and blind. She covered her face with her hands and shuddered, breath choking in her chest.

Warm, strong hands settled on her shoulders. "And if someone had come to release the Net for you?" Kakashi-sensei asked, matter-of-fact.

Sakura clenched her hands together and pressed them to her chest, to her heart, biting her lip hard. She remembered the way Sasuke and Naruto had taken care of her that first night, the way they still showed up every day, to walk her home from Intelligence or to train with her after dinner. She felt the sureness, down at the bottom of her heart, that had driven her hand through Orochimaru's chest, and finally she whispered. "If someone had released me... if my team had come for me... I would have come back." She looked up at Miuhara and Hitomi, sitting quiet and unjudging at the table, and took a long, trembling breath. "Yes."

Miuhara smiled. "I'm glad. Let's take a break, then. We can continue when you're ready."

Sakura nodded and stood, though she needed Kakashi-sensei's hand under her elbow for a moment to keep from falling over again, and went to wash her face.

* * *

Sasuke leaned against the tree across from the front doors of Intelligence, waiting for Sakura. Naruto had walked her home yesterday and he'd been scowling when he came to see Sasuke after. He'd said she looked like someone had dipped her in bleach and wrung her out. Sasuke had asked how Naruto knew anything about bleach, considering the condition of his apartment, and promised to wait for her today.

Whatever was going on with her, he needed to see.

So he waited, nodding silently to the occasional greetings of other shinobi as they emerged or entered. Both he and Naruto were becoming familiar sights, he supposed. Well enough; they were Sakura's team, and the other agents might as well get used to them now.

He was starting to wonder if this was exactly how Kakashi had become so fanatical about teamwork and supporting team members. Had he lost someone, or had someone lost part of themselves, for his sake?

When Sakura finally come out the doors, he straightened up frowning. Naruto was right; she looked washed out and exhausted, and he found himself hurrying to her side to put a hand under her arm. "Hey. Are you all right?" He frowned more darkly at the building she'd just come out of. "What are they doing to you?"

The smile Sakura gave him was a little shaky, but it looked true, and she put a hand on his arm. "It's okay, Sasuke. It's... well, it's not fun, I won't lie, but it's helping me. In the long run. Like training really hard," she added, when he continued frowning.

His brows rose at that. "Training, huh?" He didn't let go, but he did turn and walk quietly beside her.

"Kind of." She walked slowly, slower than he liked to see, and as they started coming into busier streets he glared people out of her way with no compunctions. Sakura barely seemed to notice, and he wasn't sure if that was good or bad. At last she said, softly, "He really messed with my head, you know. By the end. Partly because I was already under a technique to help me think and react... skewed. Like I resented you and Naruto, like we'd never come together as a real team. But also because he really was scarily good at that." She looked up at him, eyes dark. "You know."

He remembered years of solitary rage and desperation, and the few months when that desperation had been fed, tantalized with the promise of fulfillment and rest. And he shuddered. "I know."

"So, it isn't fun to talk about, and have Miuhara-san and Hitomi-san pick apart everything I did and heard and saw. But it helps. It helps me figure out how I really think and feel, so no one will be able to do that to me again. Or, at least, not so easily." Her shoulders straightened and her chin lifted a little at that, more the Sakura he knew.

"Okay. I guess I can see that." He looked down at her as they turned onto her own street. "Can we help?"

Her smile broke out like sunshine. "You already do. I promise."

They stopped at her door and he said, quietly. "You... you did this for me." Trying to find words to express his astonishment and fear and frustration, seeing the price she'd paid, he finally burst out with, "Why?"

Sakura's smile turned bright and sharp as a knife. "Because you're mine," she said, making him blink, and added, softer, "You're ours. That's all."

Theirs. Hers and Naruto's. And because of that, she would do this thing and think almost nothing of it. Sasuke shook his head, helplessly. How was he supposed to make sense out of that? Only family did things like that.

The thought echoed in his head, and he flinched from it.

Sasuke swallowed, staring down at her blindly. He had no family. His family was gone. His whole clan. He had nothing left but the madman who killed them all, and that was why... why everything. But Sakura would do this for him. Naruto, who argued with him by reflex, like breathing, Naruto would, he was certain, say the same. And look at him like he was an idiot for questioning it, into the bargain. They were...

They were his team! He shook his head violently. They were his team, that was all. That was why. Team, like Kakashi-sensei always said. ( _Family dies. Not family._ )

"Sasuke? Hey, Sasuke?" Sakura frowned and poked him in the arm. "Did you skip lunch today or something?"

"No," he muttered, "I... I just..." He swallowed down a rush of queasiness, of almost-fear. There was nothing to be afraid of; they were his _team_. "Never mind." He hesitated. "Sakura..."

"Hm?" She cocked her head, eyes clear and patient.

Ignoring the sudden stares of the civilians around them, he stepped forward and gathered her up, holding her tightly. "Thank you," he whispered against her ear. "For... everything."

After a startled moment, she hugged him back, just as tight. "You're welcome. Always." She pulled back a little and smiled, softly. "And thank you, too. I don't think you know for how much."

"Maybe I know a little." He let her go, hands sliding down her arms. "So. More talking about it tomorrow?"

She made a face and nodded.

"Okay. We'll wait for you again tomorrow, then." He waited until she was safely inside before taking to the roofs to head back to his own apartment.

* * *

Sakura stood in her underwear with her hands on her hips, staring at the clothes tossed over her dresser. It was obvious once you looked at them, piled layer on layer.

She'd worn a completely different outfit every day this week. One day her old red tunic and snug shorts. Another, her actual chuunin uniform. A third her black pants from Sound and her net shirt. Yet another, a dress she barely remembered buying before she left. She'd cycled through one after another, as if her clothes could tell her who she was now, and never even realized it.

Kakashi-sensei was probably laughing.

All right. This wasn't a question she could answer by random dips into her wardrobe. It was something she had to decide. Who did she want to be? And what did that person want to wear today?

Slowly, she sorted and folded her clothes. It was easy to hang up her dresses. That hadn't ever really been her day to day style. After a moment of hesitation she folded away her red tunics and blouses also. They were bright and cheerful and... too young. Too young for how she felt now. Her hands clenched in her black Sound clothes as she folded them and she had to stop and bite her lip and remind herself of the things she'd come to understand about herself in the past week. This was part of her, yes. But only part. Still, her fingers lingered on her black leather vest. It zipped down the front, the same as many of her tunics did. She'd never quite seen that before.

She laid the vest on the bed. Perhaps... perhaps this was something she would keep. A reminder that, even as deep under as she'd gone, she'd still found a tiny connection to keep. She'd still known who she was, at the very heart.

And who she was was a shinobi of the Leaf. She knew more of what that meant, now, and she wouldn't turn away from it. This was her calling. Thoughtfully, she pulled out her Leaf uniform pants and laid them on the bed too, looking at the combination.

That might do.

She dressed, wrapping her calves snugly and pulling on her sandals, and tied her forehead protector. When she took a breath and turned to look in the mirror, she smiled. That looked like someone she knew. Like a self she knew.

There was still something, though.

After a moment's thought, she reached up and tugged at a strand of hair. It was cut at her shoulders these days. It was attractive enough, and easy to care for. But right now she was remembering when it had been even shorter, a time when that had been her mark of determination. Perhaps that would be right to have again, now. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she was just being silly or overthinking this, but... all of them had changed over time, hadn't they? Outward signs of inward changes. Naruto wore black or blue, these days, aside from the ever-orange jacket. Sasuke had slowly left off wearing his high-necked shirts and started wearing wrapped tops, that and a belt that hid more shuriken than the local weapons shop. Naruto had teased him about stealing from Tsunade-sama's closet until Sasuke had rolled his eyes and pointed out a few essential differences in fit.

Looked at that way, Sakura was actually behind on her changes. She nodded firmly to herself in the mirror and hopped out her window, heading for Ino's house. And just because she was in an impish mood, she snuck up behind Ino silently in the flower shop and tapped her on the shoulder. "Hey."

Ino jumped and spun, lifting the scissors she'd just been cutting ribbon with, poised to slash or stab. Sakura grinned. "Tense today?"

"Sakura!" Ino exhaled explosively, lowering the scissors. "Don't _do_ that!" She paused and frowned. "Since when did you get that good at stealth?"

Sakura's mouth twisted. "This last mission. It was... kind of intense."

Ino's eyes darkened and she nodded silently. Ino had entered Intelligence, too; Sakura didn't have to say anything else, and Ino wouldn't press for details. Sakura inhaled, relaxing into her friend's understanding. "So, hey. I want to get a haircut; what's the best place to go to, these days?"

"Still Kitagawa's," Ino said promptly. "Thinking of a new style?"

"Yeah." Sakura smiled a little wryly, running a hand through her hair. "I just want something a little different. Shorter, I think."

"Hmm." Ino eyed her steadily for a moment. "Okay. Let me tell Tou-san, and I'll come along and introduce you."

Sakura smiled more naturally. "Thanks, Ino."

Ino escorted her through the streets, keeping just a hair ahead, passing on gossip with plenty of expansive gestures that kept the other people around them at a little distance. Ino really was pretty perceptive, Sakura reflected; she was a kind and good friend.

Of course, Ino was _also_ an insufferable know-it-all, and, once they were at the hair-dresser's, engaged Mie-san, the senior stylist, in a long discussion over the pros and cons of different styles for Sakura's face shape and hair texture. Sakura shook her head wryly and cut in. "I just want something very short and easy to take care of," she said firmly. "Nothing I have to spend a long time on in the morning. Something that looks good even if I slept in a tree the night before and finger combed it when I got up."

"Ah, a working hairstyle." Mie-san sounded a shade disappointed, but her eyes also gleamed at the prospect of a challenge. "Well, now, let me see."

Sakura suffered herself to be washed and conditioned and turned this way and that while Mie-san muttered over her hair. Eventually the clippers came out, and there was more muttering and snipping here and there, and hand-long hanks of silky pink hair, dark with water, started to fall around the chair. Eventually there was a reassuringly small bit of blow-drying and some reassuringly basic brushing, and Mie-san whisked her towel away. "There! What do you think?"

Sakura stood and looked in the mirror. Her hair was short, a soft mop of flyaway strands with unpredictable waves and flips here and there. "Does it really do that?" she marveled, running a hand through it.

"Oh yes. Your hair has surprising body for such a fine texture, especially if you don't blow-dry it."

Sakura smiled, standing straight. She looked like someone confident. Someone who knew who she was. For the first time in a long time, longer than eight months she thought, her outside felt like it matched her inside.

She really had fallen behind on her changes.

"I like it very much," she said softly. "Thank you."

"It suits you," Ino offered, head cocked. "I wouldn't have thought it, but it does."

A style she had chosen for herself, rather than listening to what other people thought was pretty. Sakura grinned. "Yeah. It does, doesn't it?"

* * *

A summons came for her team five days later. It directed them, not to the mission room or even the Hokage's office, but a room on the ground floor of the Hokage Residence. They gathered outside it, glancing questioningly at each other, but before anyone got up the guts to suggest just going in a vision in long, pale robes came sweeping down the hall to meet them.

Sakura stared at the Hokage, and the boys stared with her. She'd never actually seen Tsunade in her formal robes before.

"Tsunade-baachan?" Naruto sounded just as startled as she felt. "Why are you all got up like that? And why did we have to wear our uniforms?"

Tsunade sighed and waved them into the room, kicking her robes out of her way as she walked. "We have a bit of a situation."

The room looked like an extremely formal version of her office, wood paneled and hung with banners, with a huge desk in front of what was nearly a throne, and sumptuous chairs set out before it. Other people were there ahead of them, and Sakura's eyes widened further as she realized that half of Tsunade's council was here—all three of the Elders. _But not the ANBU or Jounin Commanders or the clan heads. So this is important, but she doesn't want to give it too much weight._ Her eyes narrowed. "Tsunade-sama? Who are you receiving?"

Tsunade settled herself at the throne-desk and smiled tightly at her. "The Daimyou of Sound Country."

Sakura's breath drew in sharply, and she was glad when Naruto and Sasuke closed in at her shoulders. "Why?" Sasuke growled, sounding more like Naruto for a moment than himself.

The Elders stirred and gave the three of them dour looks, but Tsunade's mouth just quirked. "Take it easy, we're not giving Sakura up to them or anything."

Relief flooded through her, but Sakura couldn't help asking, "Why not? If it's required for the village to save face..." The Elders were giving her slightly more approving looks, now.

"Orochimaru was _our_ criminal," Tsunade declared firmly. "Our claim on his life had priority. So." She beckoned. "Sakura, come stand here beside me and look as calm as possible. You two," she pointed to the boys, "stand at the door and make like guards and keep your mouths shut."

Only a few moments after everyone sorted themselves out, a small bell by the wall rang. "Here they come," Tsunade murmured, straightening and folding her hands on the desk before her.

The Daimyou that Shizune escorted in was accompanied by two shinobi of Sound, and Sakura had to bite her lip to keep from twitching when she recognized them. One of them was Tomita, and the look of betrayal he gave her before fixing his gaze firmly on the wall twisted her heart. _There was no other way,_ she wanted to explain. _I never wanted to hurt any of you_.

But she couldn't say that here and now. Might not ever be able to say it. So she took a breath and fixed her eyes, in turn on Naruto and Sasuke. She was deeply grateful to Tsunade-sama's foresight for putting them there, the reminder of why it had needed to be done in the first place.

The Daimyou barely let Tsunade get her greeting out before he interrupted. "Hokage! You have sent shinobi of the Leaf to attack my country and kill the leader of my hidden village! What do you have to say for yourself in face of this?"

Tsunade raised her brows, and suddenly it wasn't at all hard to believe that she was older than the man in front of her. "I sent my shinobi to execute a criminal of our own village. I regret any inconvenience this may have caused you, but if you harbor such creatures I'm afraid you must be prepared for a certain amount of inconvenience." As the Daimyou drew breath to respond, she held out a hand to Shizune, who placed a folder in it. "For example," Tsunade cut over his first syllable, "in searching Orochimaru's bases for any of our citizens he may have taken, we discovered quite a few of _your_ citizens. Some we released before they could be harmed, but some, I regret to say, had already fallen prey to Orochimaru's experiments." She laid out three large, glossy photos on her desk and pushed them across to the Daimyou with delicate fingertips, as if she didn't want to touch them too much. Sakura could guess what was in them, and didn't blame her.

The Daimyou, after one look, turned pale and pressed his sleeve over his mouth.

"Perhaps," Tsunade said softly, "you were not entirely aware of Orochimaru's propensities for this kind of thing."

"I... no, I never..." the Daimyou stammered, horrified eyes locked on the images. "Those were really...?"

"Considering that he did not limit himself to missing-nin but captured shinobi in good standing from other villages, as well," Tsunade noted coolly, "I believe you are fortunate that we got there first, and with a tightly targeted assassination rather than a general attack that might have decimated your village as a whole."

The Daimyou swallowed and rallied a bit. "Tightly targeted!" He pointed at Sakura, "That woman had her fingers in just about every Sound mission for half a year!"

Sakura felt she had the rhythm of this down by now. She tightened her clasped hands behind her and ventured to answer for herself. "My only target was Orochimaru, my lord. The other work I did, I did to the best of my ability and in good faith." She cocked her head, actually starting to enjoy this. "Are you displeased that the capital's mayor is no longer conspiring with the capital's criminals? Or that the lord of Kouzen is no longer—"

"Enough, enough," he cut her off hastily. Sakura inclined her head and continued to look politely inquiring. Beside her, Tsunade coughed into her fist, clearly fighting laughter.

The Daimyou harumphed and glowered. But after a few moments, the glare faded and he gave Sakura a more thoughtful look. "So," he said slowly. "You say that you don't wish to damage my country, or destabilize it. Wise of you, considering the border we share with Fire. But the fact remains, my hidden village is now missing a leader."

"We do regret that necessity," Tsunade-sama allowed, hands folded immovably again.

The Daimyou smiled. "Then you should have no objections to making a good-will gesture that will fix the problem." He pointed to Sakura again. "Give me her, to be the new Master of Hidden Sound."

Stunned silence held the room for a breath and Sakura had to bite her lip again to keep from squeaking with shock.

"An interesting proposal," Tsunade said at last, slowly. "I take it you were, in fact, satisfied with Sakura's work? Aside from her mission of execution, of course?"

The Daimyou flicked his fingers at the photos with distaste. "Even that would appear to have been in the country's interest."

Tsunade looked up at Sakura and said quietly, "I won't make it an order. This is too heavy a job for anyone but a volunteer; I should know. But if you wish to accept it, then you may."

A dozen thoughts spun through Sakura's mind: her pleasure at the respect of the Sound-nin, the betrayal in Tomita's eyes, the utter mess that the village and bases must be now, the potential for an alliance that would strengthen Leaf, the fact that she would have to stop thinking like that and shift her allegiance...

Her eyes fell on Naruto and Sasuke, and the spinning stopped.

She took a breath and met the Daimyou's gaze. "I'm sorry, my lord. I don't believe I could serve Sound with my whole heart." Logic, lagging behind today, finally kicked in and she added, "I'm not at all sure it would serve you best to have two Masters in a row come from the Fire Country, either. It would set a bad precedent, and I fear the shinobi of Sound would always have to doubt my true allegiance. Especially after their experiences with Orochimaru." She lifted one hand, palm up. "May I suggest, instead, appointing Naridasu Katsuhito? He is the most professional of Sound's jounin, and I believe he would do well for the village." He was certainly the one who had seemed to be hiding the most distaste for Orochimaru's 'research'. Since the Daimyou was looking disgruntled, she offered, "If you do wish to permit an alliance between Sound and Leaf, I would be entirely glad to aid in training your chuunin and genin further. I'm sure any of our trainers would be. That was..." she couldn't help glancing at Tomita, "that was my pleasure."

The Daimyou snorted, but the corner of his mouth quirked up. "You bargain well, girl, I'll say that. Very well. I'll consider Naridasu, and I'll hold Leaf to that offer of aid." If he noticed Tomita stirring beside him, he ignored it in favor of fixing Tsunade-sama with a stern look. "Next time you have evidence that one of my people is engaged in criminal activity against my own country, bring it to me before you start mounting covert operations across my border."

"If it is at all possible, of course," Tsunade-sama murmured. Which was not, Sakura noted, a yes. From the way the Daimyou harumphed some more, she thought he'd noticed that too.

"Ninja!" He stood, shaking his traveling robes into order, and swept out without another word.

Sakura let her breath out as the door closed behind him and his attendants, and leaned on the edge of the desk. Her knees were shaking.

"You handled that very well," Tsunade told her, clasping her shoulder for a moment. "Get your breath back and take your boys off before they both glare holes in me for even considering sending you away."

Sakura laughed a little. "Yes, Tsunade-sama." Another breath and she walked steadily enough across the room to where Sasuke and Naruto were indeed glaring a bit. "Hey, cut that out. I wouldn't leave Konoha." She smiled, and tugged on their sleeves. "I wouldn't leave my team."

"You'd better not." Naruto was nearly pouting at her. Sasuke just hustled them both through the door and down the hall, as if he were afraid the Hokage would change her mind.

"I won't, I won't, I promise," Sakura laughed for real, light-hearted. She could never leave this. Never.

She rocked to a stop as they emerged from the building, though. Tomita was waiting for her, leaning in the shadows of the great doors. "Tomita," she said softly.

"Did you really mean it?" he asked, not looking up from his crossed arms. "That you liked the work you did with us?"

Sakura took a slow breath, remembering the things she'd found and spoken during her debriefing last week, feeling the silent support of Naruto and Sasuke close beside her. "I meant it. Orochimaru was a menace, to my people and yours both, but Sound itself... you're good shinobi. If I really had been unaffiliated, I'd have been glad to stay." It was far more tangled than that, but those were the only parts she was going to explain to an outsider, even a maybe-ally. There was one more thing, though, she could give him. "I took that mission because Orochimaru threatened what was precious to me. If I had stayed," she said quietly, out of the surety in her heart, "I would have killed him for Sound's sake, in the end."

Finally, he looked up at her, and the earlier betrayal had become only the shadows in any shinobi's eyes. "I believe you." He straightened up and turned to go, and hesitated. Finally, with a quick breath, he spun back to face her and saluted her, fist to his heart, sharp and precise as he had that day on the border. "For that truth." And then he was gone in a swirl of smoke.

And Sakura turned and reached out blindly for her teammates, blinking back the wetness in her eyes as their arms wrapped around her.

"Hey, it doesn't matter what another village thinks about you, right?" Naruto asked, anxiously. "I mean, since you know we care about you."

"I'm just glad," she said, husky. "I know it was the right thing to do. I know I did well for them whenever I could. I just... it's good to know he believes me."

"You have an end to it, now," Sasuke said, quietly.

"Yes." Sakura looked up, feeling the words match the shape of the world around her. "Yes, that's it. An end. Not _stopping,_ but... an end."

Sasuke nodded, silent.

"Hey." Naruto pulled Sasuke tighter against them. "Quit worrying. We'll get an end for you, too."

Sasuke looked aside at that, color rising just a shade on his cheekbones. Sakura and Naruto smiled at each other, pleased and complicit. "So, hey." She nudged them both. "I think we deserve a treat. How about Dangoya for tea?"

Naruto perked up. "And then we can do Ichiraku Ramen for dinner!"

"This," Sakura said trenchantly, "is why my mother has hysterics every time I talk about moving out; because she's afraid I'll start eating like you."

"Your mother," Sasuke observed with cutting accuracy, "is afraid you'll live like any other shinobi and not bother getting married, and then she won't get to orchestrate a grand wedding reception."

"Yeah," Sakura sighed. "That too. Okay, let's do ramen, so she can worry about that instead."

Not stopping, she thought as they made their way down the steps, never stopping. But finding the ends to their life threads. That was a good way to live.

The three of them could do that, together.

* * *

A week and a bit after their visit from the Sound Daimyou Tsunade sat at her regular, human-sized desk and folded her hands against her mouth, frowning into the air. "Another one."

"Nii, who holds the Two-tails. The more stable of Cloud's two hosts," Asuma confirmed. "It's all over Cloud; the whole village was in an uproar when we got there. For a while I wasn't sure they'd let us leave again, diplomatic mission or not."

"What does Akatsuki think they're _doing_?" she demanded, aggravated, raking a hand through her hair. "They've been mercenaries for two generations! And after this they'll never get another job from any of the great villages!"

"Could they be trying to become a village themselves?" Nara Shikaku suggested from where he leaned a hip against her windowsill. "Gain enough power to settle somewhere and hold it against their enemies?"

"That's looking like all of us, at this rate," Asuma noted dryly, teeth clicking on his senbon.

"If they have all of the tailed beasts under some form of control, they might yet stand against us all," Shikaku murmured.

Silence followed that extremely unwelcome thought.

"All of them." Tsunade tried to imagine it. "How could they possibly control all of them, though? Even if Itachi can control one host, I can't imagine any form of the Sharingan that would allow him to control more than one. Maybe they just want us _not_ to have them."

Asuma glanced at Shikaku. "Do we have any agents in Akatsuki at all?"

"Not for about ten years, now, according to Morino and the ANBU Commander." Shikaku didn't look happy. "That was just about the time Itachi joined them; he'd have known who the agents were."

"He being ANBU. Of course." Tsunade sighed. "We'll try again. I imagine Cloud and Rock will be too. Hopefully _one_ of us will get someone in and find out what the hell Akatsuki thinks they're doing."

Before they found out the hard way, she hoped.

"All right, then." She rolled up onto her feet, and beckoned Shikaku after her. "Thanks, Asuma. I'm glad to know about this before this month's meeting."

She strode down the halls of the administrative building, turning over one possibility after another in her thoughts, and none of them made any kind of sense. Akatsuki couldn't possibly have the hosts they'd taken so far under control; they must have killed them and be hoping to do whatever it was they were doing before the beasts could revive. She looked up as Shizune fell in beside her, handing over a folder, and smiled a little; this was a much more cheerful thing to think about. "You got it all in order?"

Shizune nodded brisk confirmation. "All three of them have fulfilled the usual requirements. This should be easy."

"Mm." In Tsunade's experience so far, nothing was ever easy with her Council. But it should be _simple_ anyway.

Shikaku stepped ahead of them to get the door to the meeting room where the monthly Council met and Tsunade took a breath and swept through, head high. A fast glance around the green-draped room showed the ANBU Commander and the three Elders all present, and she nodded to them. "Let's get started, ladies and gentlemen."

She listened with half an ear as Shizune reported on the arrangements for this season's chuunin exam in Hidden Valley, and Shikaku listed the jounin who had volunteered for the good-will mission to Sound. It was a shame they couldn't really send Sakura herself back, but her teammates would never let her go without them and Tsunade had bigger fish to fry with those three, right now.

"We should definitely send Yamanaka Inoichi," Utatane said, folding her thin fingers on the solid, old table. "He has experience in the Interrogation unit. He'll be able to find out how much threat Sound still is to us."

"Inoichi is certainly just the person to lead the mission," Tsunade agreed, knowing there was an edge in her voice and unable to help it. Unsure she even wanted to help it. "He has an even temper and a diplomat's manners, which is just what a good-will mission needs."

Mitokado snorted, and Tsunade reminded herself yet again that she couldn't strangle her own first councilors just because they were a couple of war-crazy old goats. Shame, that. "If calm is what you want on that mission, you should send Aburame Shibi too," the old man suggested, sarcasm clanging in every word.

Tsunade bared her teeth at him. "An excellent suggestion. His self-possession will be very valuable, and I'm sure a little quiet would be appreciated by everyone." Shizune coughed meaningfully behind her and Tsunade made herself sit back. She knew she shouldn't let these two get to her, but it had been a very long time indeed since anyone dared treat her like some raw graduate.

Danzou stirred. "If two jounin are going on this mission, that will stretch the village a little thin. Especially considering the recent Akatsuki incursions among the great nations."

Tsunade picked up the folder she'd dropped on the table, wondering one more time exactly what contacts Danzou still had among Intelligence that he always knew about the classified reports. "A very good point. Fortunately, we have three chuunin who have been nominated for promotion this quarter." She slid the topsheets across the table to the Elders and the ANBU Commander and waited.

"Completely unacceptable!" Mitokado exclaimed.

"All three of them have been properly nominated by jounin who were not their field-teacher," Shikaku pointed out a bit dryly. "All three of them have displayed mastery of high level techniques in at least two elements and completed the minimum number of B-rank and above missions."

"Haruno-kun is considered, by all those who know of her recent mission, to have displayed unusually good judgment under high-stress conditions," the ANBU Commander added quietly, hands tented under his cat mask.

"Haruno, certainly, but you can't possibly promote Uzumaki." Mitokado dropped the topsheet with an air of finality. "The kind of missions a jounin goes on are far too great a risk." He frowned and added, "And he's only displayed mastery of one element, hasn't he?"

"Wind, yes." Tsunade had her hands folded so tight her knuckles were white. "And yang chakra. The Nine-tails' chakra, to be precise."

"That cannot possibly count toward the promotion requirements," Mitokado nearly sputtered.

"What's your problem with Naruto?" Tsunade asked bluntly. "You certainly wouldn't try to tell me that my yin mastery doesn't count." Not if the old goat wanted to live to see sundown, anyway.

"He's the village's Sacrifice! His training with you has kept him in the village, and that's as it should be. The idea of sending him out like any other jounin is preposterous."

And if he were formally promoted, Tsunade reflected grimly, there would be a lot of pressure to do just that. "Sacrifice" or not. Which was the _idea_. "So you want me to withhold the rank that he's earned from him? Set him apart even more? Keep alienating him from the village we all hope he'll protect?"

"Tsunade," Utatane broke in. "It's not just that. In time, Uzumaki may demonstrate the ability to take on jounin level missions, but right now you can't deny that he's still very immature."

"And how will he gain maturity without experience?" Tsunade argued.

"Vital as this question is," Danzou murmured from where he'd been sitting quiet and still, "I believe the nomination of Uchiha Sasuke is even more problematic. An immature shinobi may gain experience, if you are willing to take such a risk, but will an unstable one become any more stable?"

"Both his teachers attest that Sasuke has indeed become more stable over the last two years," Shikaku answered calmly before Tsunade could get her teeth unlocked to tell Danzou exactly what she thought of his argument.

"Stable enough, though?" Danzou shook his head as if sadly. "I have no objection to Haruno, of course, but Uzumaki and Uchiha... no. They need more time. Surely there's no need to rush them into promotion and possibly unsettle their development as shinobi."

Both Mitokado and Utatane settled back and nodded firmly in agreement, and Tsunade breathed deeply to keep from screaming with frustration. Just as any jounin could nominate a chuunin for promotion, enough of the Council could block the nomination. With all three of her Elders standing firm, they were deadlocked and she couldn't very well call in the noble clans on a promotion question; that would open the door to all sorts of accusations of favoritism and factionalism. "Very well," she said through her teeth. "Shikaku. Inform Haruno of her promotion. Shizune, clear some time in my schedule tomorrow; Naruto and Sasuke deserve an explanation. And an assurance that their Hokage does not doubt them."

And on that note, the meeting broke up. Tsunade went to get some stomach soothing tea from Shizune's stock and wondered if it would be too extremely disrespectful to pray at the Senju's Touki shrine for her Elders to die peacefully in their sleep, someday very soon.

* * *

The next day, though, it wasn't just Naruto and Sasuke who came to her office at the appointed hour. Sakura was with them too. In fact, she was the one who actually marched up to Tsunade's desk while Sasuke and Naruto waited by the door. She threw her promotion letter down and crossed her arms.

"Is it true that Naruto and Sasuke were supposed to be promoted and were blocked?" she demanded, nearly glowering.

Tsunade pursed her lips and leaned back in her chair. Apparently Danzou wasn't the only one who could take advantage of the Intelligence grapevine. "I'm afraid so," she admitted. "I have every faith in them, as do the field commanders, but a majority of the council has to approve jounin promotions."

Sakura's eyes narrowed and Tsunade would be willing to bet the girl had understood exactly who was left in opposition to her partners, if the Hokage and the field commanders had no qualms. More significantly, she thought Shizune would be willing to bet, too. "I see. Well." She snapped her hands together in the Tiger and spat pointedly at the letter, which went up in flames. "You can tell them that they can take my promotion, fold it in corners, and stick it up their asses! I'll advance with my team or not at all!" With that she whirled and strode out of the room leaving a small pile of char on top of Tsunade's desk. Naruto, grinning all over his face, swaggered out on her heels. Sasuke paused to give Tsunade a brief bow and a definite smirk before following.

When Shizune came in five minutes later, Tsunade was still laughing. "Tsunade-sama?" she asked, cautiously.

Tsunade wiped her eyes as she caught her breath again. "That girl is going to be a first councilor herself one day, you know she will." She dissolved in chuckles again. "Naruto will change Konoha when he's Hokage, all right! I don't see how he could help it with those two beside him!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm positing some differences in vocabulary in how people refer to the tailed beast hosts, here. I've translated _jinchuuriki_ as "Sacrifice". But whenever someone refers to them as "hosts", that's _yadonushi_ , which is a considerably less dire and freighted word. I really think that friends and (sane) family would be more likely to use something like that than _jinchuuriki_.
> 
> As for the Council I'm constructing here, we don't even meet Danzou until part two, but he sits with the group deciding who gets to be the new Hokage; clearly Kishimoto decided he was going to be an important part of the village's governance. This begs the question of why we never saw anyone but Utatane and Mitokado taking part in governance decisions in the first half, and why we keep seeing far larger groups advising the other Kage. To reconcile all this, I invented the office of "first councilors" to serve as the Hokage's immediate advisers and widened the Hokage's Council to include the heads of the noble clans and the field commanders. I posit that there's actually a four-way balance of power (Hokage, Elders, clan heads, field commanders) and that what counts as a majority varies depending on how the "sides" are divided up on any given issue.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gaara is taken by Akatsuki and Kakashi's and Gai's teams are sent to aid Hidden Sand to get him back. Drama, Action, and Fluff.

Sasuke dangled his legs over the weathered edge of the Nara house's engawa and listened to the soft _tick_ of stones as Sakura and Shikamaru played a game of go an arm's length away. It was the first time both teams had been home at once for a few months, and everyone was enjoying a bit of a break.

"Hey, that almost singed my _hair_ you jerk!"

The less quiet sounds of Naruto and Ino sparring broke through the brown and gold shadows in the trees of the back garden. Everyone had their own definition of "taking a break".

"It just doesn't make sense, you know," Sakura said, out of the blue, frowning down at the board. "There's been another attack on a host. This makes both of Rock's hosts taken!"

"Sakura," Ino said warningly, touching down on the grass. "That's secure information; you shouldn't be sharing it outside Intelligence."

Sakura flapped an impatient hand. "We're the yearmates of our village's host. If it comes down to guarding Naruto from Akatsuki, we'll most likely be the inner line of defense. If anyone needs to know this, we do." She frowned. "Besides... I don't think it's a coincidence that our year and the one before have so many shinobi who are this strong this young."

Shikamaru looked up from contemplating his next move, eyes sharp. "What do you mean?"

Sakura chewed her lip. "Look, I know this sounds like superstition, but... we're the ones who spent the longest time closest to Naruto. I don't have very solid evidence yet, but I think that had an effect."

"So I'm, like, an amplifier?" Naruto asked, flickering down from the trees to the grass after Ino. "Cool."

"You're an annoyance," Sasuke corrected without sitting up. "I suppose that does tend to goad a person forward, yes."

"Jerk." Naruto pounced on him and they wrestled for a moment before Sasuke got a foot behind Naruto's knee and flipped them over, pinning him down on the satin smooth engawa with a little smirk of triumph; Naruto was a lot better at hand-to-hand these days, and pinning him was getting to be an accomplishment. Sakura was probably rolling her eyes over them, but she didn't even bother to move as they rolled around behind her.

"No, you have a point just from the numbers," Shikamaru said, mouth quirking as he watched them. "I mean, normally it takes five to ten years to pass to chuunin, and look at us. One to three years, for our entire cohort." He laid a stone down and Sakura made an annoyed sound.

"All right, if we're breaking security, let's do it right." Ino came to sit on the stone step beside Chouji and steal one of his chips, which he actually let her do. "So, the Akatsuki attacks are continuing. Rock is down both their hosts, and Cloud is down to one. And we've had one probe years ago." She poked Sakura in the knee. "I've been out on missions, not snooping in the secure files. Who else is left?"

"I think Mist still has both of their hosts," Sakura murmured in a distant tone, eyes fixed on the board though Sasuke wouldn't give any odds she was actually seeing it. "I don't know for sure about the Waterfall, though."

"Given the timing involved in the attacks, I suspect they've already got that one," Shikamaru murmured, eyes dark and thoughtful. "The Mist might have lost one by now, too."

Sasuke propped himself up over Naruto on an elbow, frowning. "You think this really is a systematic thing. Kidnapping the hosts." The hand that had been holding Naruto's elbow away from his ribs fell to his chest and spread there firmly. No one was taking Naruto away. Especially not Itachi. Not again, Sasuke wouldn't _let_ him.

Chouji looked up at Shikamaru, popping another chip into his mouth. "So, what do we do?"

"We keep ours safe," Sakura said, setting down a white stone more firmly than necessary.

"That too," Shikamaru agreed. "If we can, it would be ideal to share information with the other villages who have hosts, see if we can find a pattern in the attacks."

Sakura and Ino looked at each other. "Not Morino-san," Ino said. "He hates the idea of sharing information with other villages. And Hoshiashige-san doesn't listen to me as well as Miuhara listens to you."

"Mm. Actually, Kakashi-sensei might be our best bet," Sakura suggested. "He's not formally part of the Intelligence division, but he was, and everyone still knows him. And he has the Hokage's ear."

"We'll start there, then," Shikamaru said, laying down another stone. "And," he smiled, tight, "we'll keep ours safe."

Naruto was looking around at them all, a little flushed and wide-eyed. "Idiot," Sasuke told him, more gently than usual, and sat up to look over Sakura's shoulder at the game. He left his hand on Naruto's chest, though.

* * *

Kakashi stood in front of the Hokage's desk, just as bland as could be, waiting attentively for any questions she might have about his report.

"Hm." She was smiling, small and tight, as she set down the folder and turned her chair to face her windows, looking out through the hazy blue morning over the roofs of the village. "You know, Kakashi," she murmured in a whimsical tone, "the more I see of Naruto's generation the more I think... the Elders don't know what the hell they're going to face in just a few more years."

"I couldn't agree more." And it was a thought that kept Kakashi warm at nights, he had to admit, especially as applied to Danzou. "But they don't have the rank to support you against the Elders right now."

"Despite having reached exactly the right conclusion." She sighed and tipped her chair back. "We're going to have to do this more slowly than any of us would like. Get back to them, Kakashi. Let them know they're right; encourage them to talk this up to their own superiors. The more people in favor of a little international cooperation, the more freedom I'll have to act." She smiled slowly. "And try to take jobs close to home for a while. If any international missions or delegations open up, I think it will be some of them that I want to send. And the old goats can complain after the fact." She gave cocked a brow at him. "Brush up on your diplomacy, too. I expect it will be you I send them with."

Kakashi winced at the thought and gave her his very best hangdog look, to no avail. She just snorted. "Get used to it, Kakashi. It's getting to be about time you started picking up more diplomatic and administrative jobs. Just be glad I'm not making Shikaku name you his official successor as Jounin Commander. Yet."

Kakashi held up his hands in hasty surrender. "Missions it is! Missions are fine!"

She settled back in her chair, satisfied. "Good." Her smugness still had an alarming tinge of speculation, though, and she murmured, "Actually, you know, it might just be you I tap for--"

"I'll just go have my dress clothes cleaned and pressed, then, shall I?" Kakashi cut in, sidling toward the door before she could come up with any more horrifyingly responsible jobs to threaten him with.

Tsunade laughed. "You do that." Her amusement drained away, though, as he got a hand on the knob, and she added quietly. "Be ready, Kakashi. If I do have to take you off field work for a foreign mission, it will probably be urgent."

* * *

Sasuke bounded through the tall trees and deep gorges of the eastern Fire Country and wished he had enough breath to swear properly. But even moving at their top speed, Naruto was outdistancing the rest of them.

"Naruto!" Kakashi called the next breath, "Stay in closer."

There was no sign at all that Naruto had heard him—and an edge of visible red was flickering around him. Sasuke exchanged a tense look with Sakura. When Tsunade had told them and Gai's team that the Kazekage had been kidnapped and they were going to assist, a flash of feral rage had slitted Naruto's eyes, but he'd seemed to come back after just a second.

Maybe he just didn't want to listen, now, but this wasn't a good sign.

Sakura's mouth tightened and she nodded sharply toward Naruto. Sasuke nodded back and gathered himself. One breath, a moment of solid footing, and he flickered forward on a burst of chakra-speed to land in front of Naruto. Right in front. Despite Sasuke's preparation for it Naruto was still moving too fast, and they went down hard against the branch under them. Only Sakura's fast grab at Naruto's shoulders as she came up behind them kept them both from falling.

"Cut that out!" Sasuke barked at him, a bit winded. "You can't get too far out front of us!"

"Gaara," Naruto started, and though his eyes weren't slitted they weren't as focused as Sasuke liked.

"You want to give them two for the price of one?" Kakashi asked mildly, landing beside them.

"But I have to..."

Sasuke gave up on logic, as he so often had to around Naruto, and just shook him. "Shut up and listen to me," he said, low and deadly. "I am not letting you run yourself right into an ambush. Understand? Not by those bastards and not because you were too unbelievably bullheaded to Stay. With. Your team!" Three more hard shakes punctuated that, and Naruto finally blinked at Sasuke like he knew who was in front of him.

"Oh," he finally said, and Sasuke restrained himself with difficulty from banging his head on Naruto's shoulder a few times. It was as good as a brick wall. Or maybe that should be Naruto's _head_.

"That's the true spirit of youthful teamwork!" Gai boomed above them, and Sasuke groaned.

"Now see what you've done?" he muttered. He took Sakura's hand up and hauled Naruto with him. "Get a hold of yourself, or we'll do it for you."

Naruto smiled at that, like he knew perfectly well it was a promise and not a threat. "Yeah, okay." As they started out again, in better order this time, he added, "Thanks."

Sasuke just snorted, not really pleased to have had to show the inner working of their team to other people like that, even people from their own village. Still, better to work it out now than after they were in Sand, he supposed.

A few more strides and Neji fell in beside him. "The demon chakra has subsided again," he said quietly. "That was well done. Will you and Sakura be able to pull him out of it when we're in battle, though?"

"We will do," Sasuke said precisely, "whatever it takes."

Neji nodded. "Let us know if we can help." At Sasuke's raised brow, he smiled faintly, still looking straight ahead through the tossing green of their tree path. "Naruto carries this burden for all of us. It's only fitting that we all assist as we can." After another leap, he added, "Hinata-sama would wish it."

Sasuke nodded acceptance of that, silently. Whatever it took.

They were waved through casually at the edge of River Country and, half a weary day later, with frantic haste at the borders of the Wind Country. They ran on until Kakashi decreed a stop, well after dark. Naruto, predictably, protested, and Lee was right behind him.

"We won't be any help if we're exhausted when we get there," Sakura told them, pushing Naruto firmly down onto the sand of the hollow Kakashi had chosen to camp in and putting a water bottle in his hand. Tenten gave her a grateful look as Lee wilted at Sakura's scolding, and chivvied her partner out of his pack.

They weren't going to be much help if Naruto didn't recover his scattered brains, either, Sasuke reflected. He was their medic, after all, and a battle with Akatsuki promised injuries, to say nothing of what they might find at Sand in the wake of a raid. After contemplating this fact for a few bites of his pressed fruit bar, he sighed and scooted over to sit back to back with Naruto, leaning against him. "Hey."

Naruto made the kind of sound a person makes when their mouth is way too full and Sasuke rolled his eyes. "So, if Akatsuki has Gaara, what are we going to do?"

"Get him back," Naruto growled fiercely.

"I was hoping for a little more detail than that," Sasuke said dryly. "It isn't fair to make Sakura do _all_ the work. For example, if Gaara is hurt, you might need to stay with him while we chase Akatsuki, you know."

Naruto's back relaxed against his a little, at the reminder that he could probably do something about any injuries the Kazekage might have picked up. "So. I guess I shouldn't just run in and beat up anyone with red clouds on their coat, is what you're saying?"

"Well," Sasuke allowed, "at least not until we've got Gaara safe and know they aren't going to do anything to you."

Naruto was quiet for a moment. "So. You think Itachi will be with them?"

It was Sasuke's turn to tense, and Naruto leaned back against him more firmly. "He wasn't reported," Sasuke said tightly, "but he's the one I'm worried about taking you." He breathed through the twist of memory and sickness and managed a snort. "Normal top rank criminals, I'm not as concerned over."

"Heheh." He could hear the smug grin in Naruto's chortle and stifled a smile of his own. No need to encourage him. "Hey, don't worry." Naruto nudged him with an elbow. "I won't let him get me. And this time you'll kick his ass."

"This time," Kakashi said out of the dusk, voice hard, "you'll run faster unless you have a lot more backup."

That was voice of Sasuke's commander, more than his teacher—the same voice Kakashi had used that first time, after the bad fight with Naruto. That was the voice that understood what was at stake, and had never pretended Sasuke would be content with anything less than Itachi's blood in the end. And that was why, as Naruto was inhaling to protest, Sasuke said quietly, "Yes, Kakashi-sensei."

Naruto twisted around to stare over his shoulder at Sasuke, eyes a little wide. "Are you _okay_?" He put a worried hand on Sasuke's forehead, which Sasuke batted aside with an exasperated glare.

"He's being at least temporarily sensible," Kakashi-sensei said dryly. "Now if only I can get you to do the same at some point I will have reached the pinnacle of my teaching career." Raising his voice a little he added, "Everyone get some sleep. I have first watch."

Ignoring Gai-sensei's immediate insistence that they play jan-ken-pon for it, Sasuke tugged the blanket out of his pack and lay down. Now that they weren't moving, the night was turning very cold; he remembered that from the chuunin exam.

He remembered his solution for it, too, and his mouth quirked, invisibly in the dark, as he ran his hands through the seals for Inner Fire. Almost immediately, as he'd half expected, he had a teammate snuggled up on either side. "I showed you how to do this yourself," he whispered, nudging Sakura, making her squeak and swat at his hand. "And you don't need it," he added to Naruto.

"You do it better," she whispered back.

"Yeah, and you're warmer," Naruto added from the other side. Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"Okay, fine, whatever. Just don't toss around like you usually do." That was mostly to Naruto's address, though both he and Naruto had wound up with black eyes when Sakura had one of her nightmares.

Firmly ignoring Tenten's giggling, drifting across the hollow, he closed his eyes and pursued sleep.

* * *

It didn't take long to get to Hidden Sand the next day, and it was Temari who met them at the wall. Her face was tight and there were dark smudges under her eyes. "There were at least two from Akatsuki," she said as she led them through stunned silent streets to the hospital. "We think there may have been more than we saw, though. They headed over the north wall when they left, we know that, but none of the guards saw a thing. One or two agents among us I could believe, but a dozen?"

"Genjutsu, do you think?" Neji asked quietly.

"An incredibly strong one, if so." Temari bit her lip as they hurried up stairs and through the curving hospital halls. "I can't think what else it might have been, though."

"Itachi," Sasuke said, low, rage and fear surging out of his control for a breath to wind his nerves another twist tighter.

"We know that Uchiha Itachi is part of Akatsuki," Kakashi supplied at Temari's questioning look. "And he's achieved levels of genjutsu control I'd never heard of before."

"At least three then. Explosives, illusions, and poison." Temari's jaw set hard. "Kankurou encountered the poisoner." She pushed open the door of a private room, bright from the skylights and painted a soft, comforting apricot like the bands Sasuke had seen in some of the rock formations on the way here. It didn't make it any less a hospital room.

Sasuke had never liked hospitals. The first time he'd found himself in one was after his clan was killed, and later visits hadn't done much to break a bad first impression. The harsh, hoarse gasps of the man on the hospital bed yanked at his nerves; there was pain here, and he couldn't do a thing about it.

He wasn't at all surprised when Naruto pushed forward. "Poison?"

The very old woman by the bed said without turning, "More than one. Sasori's poisons are tricky, too. We're still trying to isolate them, and none of the general anti—" she looked over her shoulder and broke off, eyes widening. "White Fang!"

Sasuke was caught just as flat-footed as everyone else when she dove for Kakashi with a shriek of rage, but he slapped Naruto's shoulder as Naruto started to wheel back; whatever was going on, he and Sakura were here. Naruto should concentrate on what only he could do.

By the time they'd both spun back to their right jobs, Naruto to the bed and Sasuke to their commander, it was already over. Sakura was spinning away from the kick that checked the old woman in midair, and an equally old man had come forward to stop the woman. Gai's team spilled into the room after Kakashi, and once it became clear that it was Kakashi's _father_ the old woman had a grudge against everyone seemed to relax again.

"Okay," Naruto said briskly, from the bed, having ignored the whole thing, "His liver already knows what this shit is, I'll start there and burn it out."

"We already tried a direct flush," one of the other medics started, and Naruto grinned.

"Yeah, but you aren't me."

Sasuke's mouth twitched. He'd always kind of figured that Naruto's bedside manner forced people to get better just so they could avoid drowning in the overflowing self-confidence.

The old woman's brows lifted as Naruto set his hands on Kankurou's stomach and his chakra spilled into the visible range. "Who is this?"

"Uzumaki Naruto," Kakashi provided. "The Hokage's apprentice in healing, of late."

The woman paused. "She sent her own apprentice?" she murmured, almost to herself.

"Tsunade-sama takes our treaty obligations seriously," Kakashi answered, sober.

Sasuke listened with half an ear, keeping an eye on Naruto, who was starting to sweat. "Crap," Naruto finally muttered, glaring at thin air. "I've got it out of his blood, but it's... damn it..."

"Is it in his bones already?" the old woman asked sharply, coming to hover beside him.

"No, not that. It's... it's a reservoir, yeah, but not the bones, it's..." Naruto narrowed his eyes, "I think it's poisoned his _chakra_."

The woman hissed through her teeth. "Sasori! He did create that one after all." She bowed her head, hands locked tight. "Then there's nothing we can do."

Naruto growled. "There is! I just can't burn or break it like the stuff in his blood! If I could just find a way _out_ for it..." Blue eyes widened and his head jerked up. "Neji!"

Neji stepped forward, frowning. "What?"

Naruto grinned at him, and it was the grin he got in the middle of a fight when he'd figured out how to win. Sasuke smirked and settled back against the wall as the tightness in his gut eased.

"Open his tenketsu!" Naruto told Neji. "All of them, all the way! You can do that, right?"

Neji's eyes widened. "But...!" He took a breath. "Naruto, if I do that, his chakra will all drain away. He'll die."

"Not while I'm adding more. Chakra transfers were the first thing I learned to do. And I'll tell you when to close them again." Only Naruto, Sasuke reflected, could make a suggestion this crazy sound perfectly reasonable. Neji had the slightly disbelieving expression of any normal person hearing it; fortunately, it wasn't the first time, for him and Naruto.

"He needs to be standing upright so I can reach all sixty-four key points," he said slowly. "Naruto, you'd better be right about this."

"I am." Naruto's eyes were fixed back on his patient, and his confidence this time was quiet and sure.

"All right."

The other medics got Kankurou upright and Neji set his feet, preparing, and engaged his Byakugan. One breath. Another. And then there was a whirl of strikes, blindingly fast, absolutely precise, and Neji was in front of Kankurou again, only to leap back. "Naruto!"

"Got it!" Naruto blazed up with the force of chakra he was concentrating, hands pressed to Kankurou's chest. Another breath, and Neji hissed, still holding the Byakugan.

"It's moving..."

Sasuke thought everyone in the room might be holding their breaths, hanging on Neji's terse reports of Kankurou's chakra levels as Naruto stood like stone in front of him, scowling in concentration.

Sasuke was keeping an eye on _Naruto's_ chakra levels, frowning at the rapid drain. But Naruto wasn't turning muddy or jagged, so he kept his mouth shut. And kept watching. He'd been party to more than one of Tsunade's lectures to Naruto about having a spotter when he tried a new technique, and he'd seen Naruto get so concentrated on his work Shizune had to knock him out to stop him.

"Almost," Naruto panted. "Al... most... got it! Neji, close them down!"

Neji struck again, fast and sure, and Naruto slumped against the next bed. "Okay," he rasped, as Sasuke released the Sharingan, with a covert sigh of relief. "See if that got it."

The wide-eyed medics lifted Kankurou back into bed and the old woman passed her hands over him. "He's stable," she said, rough and shocked. "His pulse, his muscles, his chakra... all clean." She turned and stared at Naruto. "How could you possibly feed enough chakra to him to _replace_ his and still be standing?!"

Naruto grinned, pushing himself upright. "Well, me and Gaara have some things in common."

The old woman actually sputtered. "Are you telling me the slug girl taught Leaf's Sacrifice to _heal_?"

"Naruto is a very strong healer," Kakashi observed blandly before Sasuke and Sakura could do more than stiffen at what the woman had called Naruto. "The village is very glad to have him."

The old woman's eyes darkened. "I see," she said, very low. "That... was wise of the girl." More briskly she added, "And an ingenious solution, boy. You're a credit to your teacher."

"Chiyo-baasama?" The whisper from the bed drifted through the momentary silence, and everyone spun to see Kankurou pushing himself slowly up. "What...?"

"Kankurou!" Temari just about tackled him back to the bed with a hug. And then she grabbed his shoulders and shook him hard. "You idiot! You went without backup! Never, ever, do that again!"

Sasuke caught Sakura's eye and had to stifle a snort of laughter; that sounded extremely familiar.

"They have Gaara!" Kankurou flailed a little trying to sit back up again. "We have to go after them!"

"There are tracking teams already on the two trails we found, and support teams following each of them," Temari told him. "As soon as they get a bird back to us, a full strength party is going in pursuit." She smiled a little. "The Leaf sent us help, too."

"Heh." Naruto straightened all the way. "Yeah, don't worry about it. We'll bring Gaara back!"

"Uzumaki." Kankurou looked around, and frowned. "Wait, how did I... did _you_...?"

The old woman, Chiyo, patted his arm. "Indeed. Naruto-kun was the one who cleared the poison from you." She held out a hand and ordered. "Grip!"

Obediently, Kankurou gripped her hand tight, and she nodded judiciously. "Almost fully recovered." She cocked her head at Naruto. "I'm very impressed. It was a completely brute force approach, but you actually undid most of the muscular and arterial damage. It seems the slug girl became a good teacher, as well as a good medic." She brushed her sleeves straight and added, quite casually, "When the team leaves to go after Gaara, I will accompany it."

"I'm coming too!" Kankurou swung his legs off the bed and pushed himself up with determination and only a little shakiness.

"Kankurou, you should stay put and recover," Temari exclaimed. "I'll go."

Kankurou smiled, crooked. "You know the council won't listen to me the way they will to you, Nee-san."

Temari made a frustrated sound, and Sasuke thought he knew what hidden fear was underneath her anger. Fear of the hell he'd lived in himself, of losing everything. "We'll bring them back," he said, quietly. "Both of them." It could still be done for Sand, at least. That thought was actually a little comforting.

"We'll absolutely bring everyone back," Naruto seconded, with downright alarming intensity.

Temari looked at them for a long moment. Finally, very softly, she asked, "Why?"

Naruto looked away, shrugging one shoulder. "Like I said, Gaara and I... we have some stuff in common." He looked up at Sasuke and Sakura, and then beyond them at Gai's team. "But I found people who accepted me. And he didn't. I know how it hurts, and I'm not going to let it keep going on." He looked back at her, again with that absolute determination of his. "Now that he has people, I'm not going to let him lose them!"

Sasuke nodded silently. It was true enough for him, too, though it was Temari he was thinking of and the expression that would be on her face if she had to stand and watch her family taken away from her. That was more than he was going to say to another nation's shinobi, though, no matter how much sympathy he had.

Temari had a hand pressed to her mouth. She blinked hard and swallowed, and whispered, "Thank you."

Naruto ran a hand through his hair, sheepishly. "Hey, don't worry. It'll all be okay."

Temari drew a slow breath and pulled herself together. "Come with me, then. I'll find rooms for you while we're waiting for the tracking parties to report."

* * *

Word came in the small hours of the morning, which Sasuke thought was a good thing. Much longer and Naruto would have produced Shadow Clones and gone chasing after both trails at once himself.

It would have been easier if the trail back toward River Country had been the true one, and it certainly ended in a convincingly warded cave, but there was no scent or trace of Gaara. Kankurou and Chiyo both agreed that trail had been laid by a puppet. The trail north into Sky Country, on the other hand, kept both Sasori's scent and Gaara's. A Sand patrol already near the border was ordered to close up and support the trackers, and Chiyo led Kankurou and the two Leaf teams out of the village herself.

"We'll just have to hope no one from Rain stumbles over this," Chiyo said grimly, as they ran north over slowly lightening sand and rock. "Because we don't have time to beat sense into that idiot Hanzou's head and then wait for the village to contact all their border patrols and convince them to stand aside."

"Akatsuki have gone to ground, haven't they? They won't be moving again without us catching them; we can take a little while to explain to the border patrols if we have to," Gai said, and gave her one of his embarrassingly optimistic thumbs up signs. "We'll have the Kazekage back in no time!"

Chiyo gave him a quelling look that Sasuke entirely approved of. "Depending on how many of them are gathered at this hidey hole of theirs, it's possible they're going to attempt an extraction."

"Extraction?" Both Gai and Kakashi looked puzzled.

Chiyo was silent for a few strides. "I don't know how Leaf does it, but Sand always extracted the tailed beast from the Sacrifices when they became too worn down to control it any more. It allowed us to store Shukaku in a stable form between embodiments. Akatsuki may have their own Sacrifice to transfer the One-tail into."

Sakura hissed between her teeth and Sasuke glanced over to see her eyes widening, sharp with calculation.

"But..." Neji was frowning. "Forgive me, Chiyo-san, but a beast's chakra mixes very deeply with the host's. Wouldn't that scar the host very badly?"

"It kills them," Chiyo said bluntly, dark eyes fixed straight ahead.

That choked off everyone for a moment, and Kankurou lost his next stride. "Gaara," he whispered.

"It takes time," Chiyo said. "Time and a great deal of chakra. If there aren't too many of them gathered, we'll still be in time." She shot a sidelong glance at Naruto. "I'm glad you're with us, Naruto-kun."

Naruto was starting to look a little feral again, and Sasuke and Sakura immediately closed in at his shoulders. Chiyo's brows twitched up, but she turned back to keeping their pace without comment.

"This is it," Sakura was muttering. "This is what they're doing! Not keeping control of the hosts... gaining control of the _beasts_!"

"Sakura," Sasuke asked, very quietly, "how many have been confirmed taken?"

"Five," she said, tightly. "More than half."

Sasuke felt something very cold sink down into his stomach. "I think this mission just became important to more than Sand and Leaf alone," he said, a little husky.

"I think you're right. Kakashi-sensei," Sakura called.

"We're all that can get there in time, this mission," Kakashi answered, and Sasuke wasn't surprised he was already on the same page. "But the villages have to know, one way or the other. Sasuke, can you summon on the run? Yours will be fastest."

Despite the sudden grimness of the situation, Sasuke's mouth quirked as he remembered the training Jiraiya had harried him through in this very country. "It'll be nostalgic," he murmured, and pulled a summoning scroll out of his pouch while Naruto took point and Sakura dropped behind to watch his back. A nick of his thumb, and blood to carry the summons, and Youchi swooped down over his head, wings shadowing them against the high, steel blue of the morning sky.

"On vacation again?" the hawk asked sarcastically.

Sasuke ignored the attitude. He was used to it; it was even comforting in a way, to have something around with a sufficiently caustic outlook on life that he didn't feel the need to contribute any extra cynicism. "Get word to the Hokage," he directed. "Akatsuki may be extracting the tailed beasts from their hosts, either to hold or to seal into their own candidates. Everyone needs to know this, not just us."

"Okay, but if Leaf's message keeper tries to mew me up again, I'm going to take his scalp off for real this time." Before Sasuke could answer, Youchi was winging away to the east, straight and fast.

"Have I mentioned that your summons is a jerk?" Naruto asked.

"Have I mentioned that yours is an idiot?" Sasuke shot back. He still hadn't forgotten the time Gamakichi glued all of his underwear to the bottom of his pack, not even on Naruto's orders.

"I bet your summons is nice _and_ smart, Sakura-san," Lee chipped in, ever hopeful.

"I haven't contracted with one," Sakura said rather dryly from behind him, "but if I had I can guarantee you it would be more _sensible_ than both of theirs put together."

Sasuke and Naruto shrugged at each other. That one was pretty hard to argue with.

* * *

A little more than two days took them over the border of Sky Country to meet with one of the trackers at the edge of a swamp.

"Kurota," Kankurou greeted the man, "report."

"There's an old building, well into the swamp, perhaps an abandoned temple." The man gestured almost due north. "The way to it is a maze, half reality and half illusion, seeded with some very subtle chakra triggered traps. We only broke all the way through this morning, and we don't have anyone with us who can open the door into the place."

"Show us," Chiyo rapped out. Kurota paused to bow deeply to her, which, Sasuke was distantly amused to note, made her hand twitch as if to cuff him. Sand did seem to have a feisty bunch of Elders.

The swamp path was a maze all right, and Sasuke was impressed the Sand teams had made it through with, apparently, no deaths. Even he and Sakura together would have been hard pressed to pick apart the tangle of subtle illusion that led the foot toward quicksand here, a sinkhole there, cloaked the already faint ripples of water predators in another spot. The obvious routes through clumps of trees were seeded with strangling traps. It took hours to work their way through, even with a guide, and he watched both Naruto and Kankurou getting tenser with every turn they had to take away from the path straight north.

It distracted him from his own tension, which cranked higher every time he couldn't keep from thinking about who might well have set these illusions.

Fortunately, Kankurou had Chiyo next to him to tweak his ear admonishingly whenever he tried to hurry ahead. As for Naruto... well Sasuke and Sakura both stayed close, with a hand on his arm or shoulder when they could. Naruto's eyes kept flickering toward the feralness of the fox.

When they finally broke out of the maze, they found the rest of the Sand teams gathered at the foot of a gray stone building in the square, tiered style of Sky Country, though it had none of the windows those tiers of roofs usually sheltered.

The tall, narrow doorway was blocked with stone, too.

Turning away from it was the dark-haired woman Sakura had met during the chuunin exams.

"Kankurou-san!" She stopped for a startled moment. "Chiyo-baasama."

"Yes, yes, spit it out, what's the problem?" Chiyo demanded testily, and Fuunotora regathered herself.

"The whole temple has a reflective seal woven through the stone. Any chakra technique at all is reflected back on the user. We need to break through with pure taijutsu, and none of my people are that strong; Shinji reports the walls and that door are over a meter thick. Perhaps one of your puppets? Or can one of our allies do such a thing?" She cocked a brow at Sakura.

Chiyo grunted unpromisingly, and Sakura glanced at their second team. "Gai-san? Lee?"

"Lee," Gai said firmly, laying a hand on Lee's shoulder. "Knowing the difficulty, even I might slip and bring my chakra to bear."

Lee stood very straight. "Right!"

"Any intelligence about the door itself?" Kakashi asked Fuunotora.

"Shinji!" Fuunotora called, and the Sand nin kneeling with his hands pressed to the stone in the door looked over his shoulder. For a second, Sasuke thought the man's eyes were as black as his, but then he blinked and his pupils shrank abruptly to show brown around them.

"This is definitely the weakest structural point," he tapped on the stone at a little over head height. "Aim here."

An eye technique. Which, of course, made Sasuke think of Itachi, and he shook himself, set that aside for later when they knew one way or the other. Instead, he breathed, cleared his mind of one thing after another, and slid into the place where the Sharingan turned the world clear and precise, watching like one of his hawks for the movement that signaled prey.

Kankurou was ordering the Sand teams to make a charge once the door was open, or clear more traps, whichever was needed. Kakashi waved the Leaf-nin to fall in behind them. Lee stood in front of the door, breathing slow and deep. Neji had his Byakugan active and was watching the temple tight-mouthed.

"Hurry," he said quietly. "It isn't just the reflection jutsu distorting things; there's something strange going on in there."

Lee nodded and sprang high into the air, spinning as he came down, and Sasuke could see the fine precision with which gravity and momentum came together with Lee's own strength in a single heel strike at the precise point Shinji had indicated.

Cracks starred the rock on impact, and one of the Sand nin gasped.

Lee landed in a crouch and spun up in a fluid wheel to punch the impact point with a kiai that was nearly a scream.

The rock shattered.

So, Sasuke noted, had two of Lee's long hand bones. His ankle was severely strained. Neji was swearing viciously under his breath even as he looked past his teammate into the building. "No traps," he shouted, "go!" The whole lot of them charged forward over the rubble.

The Sharingan highlighted for Sasuke every detail of what was inside. A single, open room. A huge, fading shape, shoulders and hands and a demon face. Five of nine figures fading with it. A body in unfamiliar dark robes but with red hair he recognized falling through the air. As it hit the ground, Kankurou's and Naruto's voices nearly as one, frightened and furious.

"GAARA!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another thing I never found believable was that one of the major villages wouldn't have any trackers of their own to have sent after their freaking _Kage_ , and would not have sent any of their own teams along with the Leaf team to rescue him.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke faces his brother again. Fortunately, Sakura and Naruto are there for him, and he finds the space in his head to do what he has to do. Involves character death. Drama, Action, Angst.

Naruto and Kankurou's voices still rang off the walls when Gaara hit the floor with a dull, boneless thump.

"Well," murmured the blond Akatsuki, looking toward the broken temple door, "that was faster than we expected, hm?" He smiled very unpleasantly. "Just not fast enough." As two of the four dark robes remaining faded back into the shadows, he strolled toward them, stepping over Gaara's body and carelessly kicking it in passing.

Sasuke wasn't surprised when Naruto snarled with absolute rage and charged the man, red flickering around him.

"Naruto," Sakura shouted, sharp, "it's you he wants, don't be an idiot!"

Sasuke's vision tracked the man's hand as it dove into his pouch and a pale, grayish white bird bloomed up from it, growing large enough for the man to spring onto and ride. Not an elemental transformation but what might well be unlimited shaping of his medium, trained observation noted coolly; that was dangerous.

Sasuke snapped his hands together, fast and sure with the knife-edge perception of the Sharingan, and blew fire at the bird while the Sand team showered kunai, needles, and a loop of razor wire on the other remaining Akatsuki. At the edge of his field of vision, he saw that attack blocked with what looked like a jointed tail. The bird he was aiming for swooped up over his flame, and he took in the flicker of alarm over the blond one's face. "That stuff burns badly," he reported, flat and fast. "This is the explosives expert."

"This one is Sasori," Chiyo grated. "Leave him to us."

Gai flickered through the temple's shadows, coming up to flank the one on the bird. "The other two are gone. Let's take this one down with the passion of youth!"

The blond just laughed. "But that wouldn't be what I want." He swooped down again, fast and hard, and the bird-thing scooped up Gaara's body.

"Gaara!" Naruto leapt for him, fingers clawed. Kankurou whipped around and was nearly cut down by Sasori's tail before Fuunotora tackled him to the ground.

"You want a dead body that much, hm?" the blond taunted, and flitted right out the door. Naruto bounded after him, chakra boiling off him, and for the first time he could remember Sasuke heard Kakashi swear. Sasuke couldn't blame him at all and held on to the still, sharp judgment of the Sharingan by his bare fingertips while fear for his idiot teammate wrenched at his control.

At least Itachi didn't seem to be here.

"Chiyo-san, we'll handle this," Kakashi snapped.

"And we'll handle this one," Chiyo said grimly. "Go!"

As they bolted out the door again after Naruto, Kakashi called, "Remember the illusions in the swamp! And remember that the other two might or might not have actually left!"

Fear and fury jerked at Sasuke's control again, at the reminder. He forced them down, teeth gritted.

Naruto was leaping through the trees already, chakra shredding the traps in his way as he followed the bird and they followed him. The next grove wasn't lit from the right angle, though, and Sasuke barked, "Illusion!"

He exhaled with relief when Naruto landed short of it; Naruto was listening after all.

"Pit trap," Neji reported, staring deep into it. "Jump ten meters."

"Wait." Sasuke perched on his branch and looked past the illusionary clump of trees. "There's something past it..." Just a flicker of light in the wrong place, but... and then he hissed through his teeth. Naruto had already jumped. Idiot!

"Tenten," Gai called, "saturate the other side!"

"On it!" Tenten leaped straight up, above them all, and unfurled a long scroll. Weapons rained down on the place where Naruto would land in just another second.

Nothing else happened. Had he been wrong? Naruto had landed and leaped again, and Sasuke prepared to follow, worry over his teammate's loss of control clawing at him even as he kept his eyes focused, searching the other side for that hint of something askew. He was in midair when one particular patch of reeds caught his attention. What was it? What was wrong, what was he seeing? He looked closer.

"Sasuke!" Sakura hit him from the side, taking them both down in a tangle of limbs and very hard ground for someplace so wet. "What?" he gasped, winded, trying to spot that place he'd found again.

"Don't look," she commanded, catching his face in her hands and holding his eyes, hers wide and alarmed. "Look at me, not at that! It's not real, whatever you see is an illusion, that's Itachi standing there!"

For a moment the shock was so great he couldn't make sense of her words. And then he understood and squeezed his eyes shut, slamming his hands together in the release. "Kai!" he barked, as much at himself as at the illusion, turning his focus inward.

There. He had been influenced, yes. He flared his chakra hard and sharp, throwing off the pressure, and opened his eyes again. The Leaf teams had landed around him, and Itachi was standing where he'd seen a suspicious patch of reeds—suspicion that had made him focus on them. "Very clever," he grated, glaring at his brother's chest.

"Gai," Kakashi said softly, beside him, "can you deal with this one again?"

"Yes," Gai answered, serious for once. His eyes were focused on Itachi's feet. A detached part of Sasuke's mind was impressed. That was a difficult approach. The clan had always trained to watch the chest, which telegraphed more clearly, even if it was a little more dangerous, a little easier to catch the opponent's eyes that way. And Gai wasn't clan; he must have figured it out on his own.

"I'll go after Naruto, then. Be careful!" Kakashi vanished down the path of crushed grasses and shredded traps, after Naruto. Good. That was good, that someone would be there to look after Naruto.

Sakura gripped his shoulder hard. "Are you all right?" she asked, low. Sasuke took a slow breath and yanked his thoughts back into order. Naruto was going after Gaara's body, and Kakashi would take care of him. The Sand teams probably had Sasori in hand. He was here, with Sakura and Gai's team, and Itachi was in front of them. He had backup, today, to go with opportunity, and his brother was standing in front of him. Now. The time to take Itachi down was now. That was all he needed to think about.

"I'm all right," he said, settling his shoulders under her hand and focusing again.

Neji's head snapped around. "Someone's coming! Someone with a huge amount of chakra!"

"Can Akatsuki have one of their own hosts with them already?" Sakura suggested tightly.

"Not that, but... close. Closer to a host's chakra than I've ever seen." Neji turned smoothly, falling into one of his clan's defensive stances.

"Looks like you got more than just your brother," a rough voice said from the shadows of the red reeds, and another black cloak materialized out of them. "Want me to take the extra off your hands, Itachi-san?" The newcomer bared sharklike teeth that reminded Sasuke with a sharp twinge of their very first mission as a team, and the Swordsman they'd faced.

"Swordsman of the Mist," Sakura confirmed softly. "With that shape sword... Hoshigake Kisame. The strongest of his generation."

"That would be very kind of you," Itachi murmured, and Sasuke couldn't help flinching at the sound of his voice.

"Gai-sensei," Neji said, quiet and grim, "I don't think any of us but you will be able to deal with Hoshigake. And maybe not even you alone. Take Tenten and Lee. I will stand with Uchiha Sasuke until you return, as a jounin of the Leaf and as a Hyuuga."

It was a long moment before Gai rumbled, "Very well."

"We'll concentrate on wearing Itachi down, then," Sakura whispered, not moving her lips, and Sasuke felt himself relax just a little. Sakura was their strategist, the one who thought ahead; he had her help this time. And he was the striking hand of their team, after all. All he had to do was listen to her, and focus, and he would have his chance for revenge.

"All right," he agreed. "Call it."

In the moment Hoshigake's hand went up to the hilt of his massive sword, arm blocking a little of his vision, she snapped, "Scatter!" The six of them spun away, into the trees, into the reeds, into the water.

"Hmm. Well, then, perhaps we may move our discussion to a calmer and drier place," Itachi said to the air, quite serenely, and took to the trees with a bound that barely stirred his robe.

"Track," Sakura's voice directed from the tree line. Sasuke nodded to himself and made for Itachi's right, as Sakura would be making for his left, trusting Neji's Byakugan to see them and show him his spot in the middle of the V. Naruto's regular spot.

An explosion echoed over the swamp from the direction Naruto had gone, and Sasuke jerked, wavering on his landing for a breath. Naruto would be all right, he told himself fiercely. And Sasuke would keep Itachi away from his teammate. Far away. Itachi wouldn't take anyone away from him again.

Itachi led them out of the swamp and into merely damp forest, alighting in a clearing, quite calmly out in the open. They bracketed him, and Sasuke pushed down a rush of tension, waiting for Sakura's call. It was Neji stepped out of the trees first, though.

"Hyuuga," Itachi murmured, tilting his head. "Neji-kun, if I recall correctly?" His eyes changed and Sakura's voice whipped across the clearing.

"Illusion, Neji, look out!"

Neji stiffened for a long moment, and Sasuke saw Itachi's mouth start to curve. It stopped when Neji shouted and his chakra flared for one instant into visibility, hard and edged. "The Uchiha descend from the Hyuuga," Neji said, voice rough now. "We have known them from the beginning. Did you think we kept no techniques against the thing that some of you became?"

"Ah. The honor of the Hyuuga. And where is your honor now, when you stand against the inheritor of Uchiha? Is your clan not allied to mine?" Itachi inquired.

Sakura landed beside Sasuke, pulling his attention off the conversation, off his brother, off his own rising horror and fury. Once again, Sasuke found himself grateful for Kakashi's wisdom; an anchor against the storm in his heart might be his strongest weapon right now.

Neji's voice dripped with well-bred scorn. "The inheritor? You?" He snorted. "You are a renegade and traitor. None of our obligations are to you any more. They are owed now to Sasuke alone."

"Ah?" Itachi raised his brows just a shade. "Am I misinformed, then? I had thought the Third and his filthy Elders too fearful of the Uchiha's influence to allow Sasuke to take his place properly as the head of the clan. Without a clan head, without that authority to declare, I cannot be a traitor."

Sasuke jerked behind his screen of tall grass, and felt Sakura's hand close on his shoulder, tight and steadying. It was true; he had never been recognized as the head of Uchiha and... he should have been. When he graduated and had formal rank as a shinobi, if no sooner. He'd always been open about his intent to refound the clan. Why...? Sudden uncertainty shook him half out of the concentration of the Sharingan.

Neji was quiet for a moment before he shrugged. "Well, we're a little short of the formal witnesses, but such things have long been acceptable on the battlefield." He raised his voice. "Sasuke? In the name of the noble clans of Hidden Leaf, I ask: do you accept responsibility for the clan of Uchiha?"

The question shivered down Sasuke's nerves. The responsibility of the clan head. For all of Uchiha, and that meant for Itachi, too. For the dead and for the insane blood of that night. For all their past. For the whole weight of the clan. It crushed down on him like a boulder, and for a moment he couldn't breathe.

 _...don't have to prove every bit of their honor all by yourself..._

It was Jiraiya's words, echoing in his head, that broke the weight, sudden as a lamp turning on to light a dark room. The past... the past took care of itself. His teacher had said so, said that the Uchiha ancestors carried the weight of the clan's honor for him—carried it well. He screwed his eyes shut for a breath and told over the generations in his mind, and remembered, as he did, that even the banishment of a clan head had not killed the Uchiha honor. Quite the reverse.

And now, it must be done again. Not that much of a problem, surely, if it had been done once already. His clan didn't weigh him down; they stood behind him. The understanding made his shoulders lighter and he straightened them.

He took a deep breath and called out, "I accept responsibility for my clan."

Neji smiled, and even from this angle, Sasuke could see it was thin and hard. "I serve the heir of Hyuuga directly, and I speak with her voice. The Hyuuga acknowledge Uchiha Sasuke as the new clan head of Uchiha." That stated, he fell silent, waiting. Waiting for what had, inevitably, to come next.

Sasuke bit his lip hard, felt Sakura behind him, both hands on his shoulders. Heard another explosion, more massive than the last, off in Naruto's direction and nearly broke up laughing. That was exactly the way his idiot teammate _would_ express his support.

Anchors.

Sasuke took another breath and spoke clearly. "Uchiha Itachi, I declare you traitor to our clan, and outcast."

"Large words, from the boy who's still too weak to face me himself," Itachi murmured.

That really did make Sasuke laugh, and the faint stir of Itachi's robes as he shifted at the sound made Sasuke smile, teeth bared. "You won't catch me that way. Not again. If others help me find my strength, it's still my own strength." That, he was sure of in his heart.

Itachi sighed faintly. "I was afraid this might happen, when you were assigned to Kakashi-senpai. Ah, well. Not all traps close firmly."

The glorious irony of hearing Itachi say that at the very moment Sakura's hands were flashing through seal on seal, almost made Sasuke laugh again as the ground opened just under Itachi's feet. Fuunotora must have taught Sakura that technique at some point, he thought, light-headed.

Itachi flickered aside from the earth traps, and that was Neji's cue to strike. Really, Sasuke thought, wasn't it about time he pitched in? He didn't have to do it all himself, no, but surely it wasn't fair to make everyone else do all the work either.

That sounded alarmingly like Jiraiya, in his head, but at the moment he didn't care. He was still on the edge of dizzy laughter as he threw the wired kunai for his Lightning Dragon into Itachi's path. He and Sakura had to spring apart after he triggered it; that one showed his location clearly. But that was all right. He could feel it again, now, the anchoring solidity of his team beside him, behind him. His mind was moving again, reading Sakura's intent in the pattern of footing traps she set under Itachi, one after another. Sasuke's part was to harry Itachi from above, to sting him with distance attacks so that Neji had a chance to close and whittle away his chakra.

It wasn't going to be easy.

Itachi was fast, and half the time his kunai picked Sasuke's out of the air, and though fire techniques left the trees and ground smoldering Sasuke hadn't singed him yet. Neji had only gotten in two solid strikes, and those weren't to vital points. If Itachi's chakra was getting deranged, it wasn't obvious yet.

It was Itachi's focus that was the problem. Sasuke watched, eyes sharp again, observing the way Itachi avoided their attacks, the smoothness of his movements. They needed another distraction. And even though the idea made his stomach clench, Sasuke thought he knew what would work.

"Why?" he called out, throwing his voice a little along the edge of the clearing. "Why did you kill our clan?"

"It's our way, little brother." The bastard barely even sounded out of breath. "Surely you've read our history by now. Friend to kill friend for power."

"That's a forbidden technique!" Sasuke yelled and hurled another shuriken viciously. "It isn't our way!" No matter how many had tried, down the years. Dozens of people, attempting to gain power and make someone else pay the price. But it was listed as forbidden in the clan's own records!

"On the contrary." Itachi slipped aside from Sakura's wire trap and flickered out of her earth jutsu trap again. "It's the way of all shinobi. The villages fight each other, regardless of the damage to their own countries or to others. The villages fight themselves, and factions twist their own people in the name of victory or of rightness." He turned, eyes catching Sasuke in the trees and following him, though Sasuke avoided meeting them. "Don't you think it's interesting that both sides always proclaim themselves right, justified over and above their opponents to take whatever action they must, and so take exactly the same actions? This corruption is the one thing we all share, no matter what badge we wear." He turned a shade too far and Neji lunged, palm striking Itachi's side, not solid enough to finish him but enough to make him grunt and spin away with less grace than usual, robe flapping.

It was working, Sasuke told himself coldly. Keep going.

"So you thought you'd be a better monster than anyone else, is that it?" he called, and ducked under the illusion screen Sakura had woven into the grasses.

"Oh, no," Itachi answered, eerily calm as he met a flurry of Neji's hand strikes, losing Sasuke's track again. "I intend to destroy the entire thing: Hidden Leaf and all the other villages. Consider. The Uchiha were the police force of Konoha, and its first line of military defense at home. If they were destroyed, the village would be vulnerable." He whirled to meet Sasuke's Fire Blossom with his own, completing the spin to fend off Neji again. "Sooner or later, another village would attack it, but the Leaf wouldn't die easily. So even in victory, the other village would be wounded and easy prey in their turn. The Leaf would have died and the Sand been next, three and some years ago, if it hadn't been for the Nine-tails' young Sacrifice. If that interference is removed, all will go well."

Sasuke slid down to his knees in the grass, control shaken by sickness. Sakura landed beside him, eyes wide and horrified, hands clenched against her chest. Even Neji fell back, staring at Itachi. "You're mad," he said, husky.

"Your clan is, itself, an example of what shinobi do," Itachi noted. "Though not the worst, by any means. Ask the Elder, Shimura Danzou, what 'Root' is, when you return. If, of course, you return." He smiled faintly. "You have dropped your guard, Hyuuga Neji-kun."

His eyes changed again and Sasuke swore, groping for another shuriken, or another coil of wire as Neji went stiff again for a breath. Then another.

"That won't be enough to break his hold," Sakura muttered, and her hands flashed through the activation of her seal. The Sharingan saw it flare to life, all the wild colors of nature energy, and Sakura was gone, heel blasting into Itachi's back.

Neji fell to hands and knees as Itachi rolled to his feet again, and Sasuke dashed out to drag him clear, checking him over with the first aid Naruto had made both he and Sakura learn. Pulse was ragged, muscles spasming, and Neji's eyes couldn't quite focus. "Tsukuyomi," Sasuke gritted out, like it was a curse.

"Half," Neji gasped. "Be all right. Help Sakura."

Sasuke nodded tightly and left him in the shelter of the trees, circling back around Sakura's lightning-fast fight with Itachi. Her hands blurred, even to the Sharingan's vision, as she slammed up stone walls and slammed down the brutal weight of water. She was, he thought, faster even than Itachi. But he was only using his chakra to defend against the jutsu, lunging again and again to close with her hand to hand. Even the power of the seal couldn't give Sakura the kind of experience Itachi had at that. Again and again, he performed a block or disengage she didn't know, made her spend her chakra to counter physical attacks with an elemental technique. Sasuke flung scavenged kunai to break Itachi's form in the air, sent fire at his legs to break it on the ground, but the clock in his head was ticking inexorably down and Itachi was still going.

And then, finally, one attack got through, straight and true. Sakura's heel smashed into Itachi's ribs, and Sasuke could see it as they gave way.

And they were out of time.

Sakura's face was twisted with frustration as she broke off and swapped herself into the trees, hands weaving the deactivation as she fell to her knees beside Neji. "Okay?" she panted.

"Caught me with some of that demon illusion of his," Neji rasped. "Not the whole thing. With his ribs gone, I might be able to fight him again."

"We'll try to buy more time, then," Sakura said, mouth in a grim line. "I have a little energy; I can't use the seal again, but I can keep away from him I think. And the others should be coming soon. I hope."

"My turn to take point, then," Sasuke said, low, and Sakura squeezed his shoulder.

"Be careful," she ordered, and he smiled.

"As much as I can." The smile crept wider at the disgruntled face she made at that, and he slipped through the trees to emerge from them a third of the way around the clearing.

On the principle of further distraction, he asked, as he stepped out, "Why did you leave me alive?"

Itachi raised his brows, though Sasuke could only see the edge of that with his gaze fixed on Itachi's chest. "To take your eyes, of course," he said with an edge of patience, as though it should be obvious. "Once you've achieved the Mangekyou Sharingan, I will take your eyes and my own sight will be preserved from deterioration. I believe it's actually an effect of incompatibility," he went on as Sasuke froze in horror. "It must be a brother's eyes, to make them compatible enough to use techniques at full strength. But the fact that they are not one's own provides just enough dampening of the chakra resonance to prevent a recurrence of blindness."

"I will never kill the friends closest to me," Sasuke whispered, barely remembering to keep his eyes on Itachi's chest.

Itachi actually sighed. "I had gathered that. It's unfortunate, especially after all my encouragement the last time we met. But luckily I believe there is another way." He smiled just a little. "A way to produce just that depth of grief and guilt that will awaken this potential in our blood. We shall see." And he sprang up, cloak whirling out as he sent a rain of shuriken spinning down toward Sasuke.

Sasuke, who could taste his own rising rage like blood in his mouth. His hands slammed into the only seal he needed these days for the Great Fireball, and he sent it howling up, blasting the shuriken aside, engulfing Itachi and rising out of the trees to burst in the sky. Itachi was smoking as he landed, but that faint smile was still here.

"Yes. I think perhaps it will work."

Sasuke bared his teeth.

Fire raged and flared against fire as they fought across the clearing, and the clearing was a good deal wider the next time they both paused, red eyes fixed across the bare-burned ground.

It was then, of course, that Naruto pelted into the space, right between them, eyes wild and teeth bared.

"Ah," Itachi murmured. "Good. I did think this one would be a surer bet than the girl."

Naruto was turning toward the voice, and Sasuke was already airborne as he yelled, "Don't look in his eyes, you idiot!" He landed nearly on Naruto's head and, as they both went sprawling, hauled him close and tumbled them both unceremoniously back toward the tree line.

"I'm watching, take a minute," Sakura rapped out as she landed beside them, eyes steady on the clearing. "Naruto, are you all right? Any injuries?"

"I'm fine," Naruto growled, struggling back up. "That blond Akatsuki is dead. We got... the body back."

Sakura pulled in a hard breath, jaw setting. "We'll see if there's anything we can do once Itachi is put away. Listen. I think he's going to try to kill one of _us_ first, not Sasuke."

"Yeah, well good luck to him on that," Naruto spat, and suddenly the clearing was filled and overflowing with Shadow Clones, all of them with Naruto's feral, slitted eyes.

"Naruto!" Sasuke snapped, shaking his shoulder. This wasn't good. Itachi was a strategist like Sakura, no matter how insane he ultimately was. If Naruto stopped thinking and also stopped listening...

"They're not getting any more of you!" Naruto yelled, and the clones rushed forward like an avalanche falling on Itachi.

For a moment, Sasuke thought it might actually work. Naruto had gotten better at controlling the clones, and right now he had the focus of a predator. Itachi went down in a welter of claws like steel and the storm of Naruto's rage. Sasuke took a breath, starting to think...

The clearing erupted in black flame.

Sasuke shouted and wove his hands together with frantic speed, backburning around where Naruto was, in the middle of the clones, of course, the _idiot_...

His flames were smothered by the black ones. As if the flames themselves were being consumed. The ground blasted up around Naruto's feet to form a break, a shield, and he saw Sakura, beside him, on her knees and shaking with the drain on her chakra.

The black flames ate the _earth itself_ and closed in. Sasuke's throat was torn with a shout that matched Sakura's, and he lunged one useless bound forward.

The flames died. In their wake was Itachi, standing beside a scorched and dazed Naruto. "Amaterasu, the fires of the underworld," he explained, quite calmly. "The final technique of our clan. Of fire itself. It will consume anything." He smiled into Sasuke's eyes, and when had Sasuke looked up? "And now your friend will die. Because of you. Only because of you, and for the sake of your power. Know this."

The words clawed at Sasuke's mind as Itachi reached under his robe and drew a sword. His fault. His doing, that his friend would die. The accusation, the knowledge, the approaching fate twisted in his thoughts. His friend, his teammate, the one who was always with him, thoughtlessly giving and guarding and arguing and name-calling.

 _You're ours. That's all._

He was theirs, and they were his, and even refusing to say the words hadn't kept this fate from coming for them. Itachi would kill his family again.

His new family. His only family. His anchor in the middle of the rage rising through him now.

No. _No_.

"NO!" Sasuke screamed, ripping himself free of the illusion twining around his mind. The sword was coming down. Naruto was only stirring, groggily, still stunned by the return of all those burned clones. Sakura's hands were coming together in the second hand seal of her activation, tears starting down her cheeks. She would kill herself and it still wouldn't be fast enough. There was no time; it was impossible.

He didn't give a damn.

Sasuke snatched up chakra from the bottom of his bones, from the corners of his soul. There was nothing to send it through, nothing to channel it, and he didn't care. His family would not die. Not again. He threw his hands forward, locking them at the last moment into the Bird, and screamed again as lightning blasted out. It lashed out, directed somehow and he didn't know how, but unchanneled, unshaped, grounding into the trees, nearly hitting Neji as he interrupted his lunge for Itachi to fling himself flat.

And it struck Itachi.

It threw him back from Naruto, twitching and gasping, and he lay still where he landed. Sasuke stood, panting for breath, shaking with the raw force he'd thrown out, and it was long seconds before he managed to stagger to Naruto's side. Naruto was hauling himself back to his feet, looking around dazed and shocked but with his hands still clenched. His lip curled back when he spotted Itachi, and he took a step in that direction.

Sasuke whacked him across the back of the head. "Moron!"

"Ow, hey!" Naruto covered his head with his hands and glared at Sasuke. "What the hell, jerk?! I'm trying to protect you, here!"

"Fine job you did of it!" Sasuke snapped back. "Nearly got your idiot self killed, and the demon hells only know how I got that last lightning strike to work trying to save your sorry ass!"

"Who asked you to?" Naruto demanded, now nose to nose with him.

"Who the hell had to ask?!" Sasuke yelled. "You don't _ask_ your team for that!"

"I think," Neji interrupted them rather dryly, dirt streaked as he crawled back to his feet, "you might want to stop before you make Sakura any worse."

"Huh?" Naruto looked around, eyes wide and alarmed.

Now they weren't yelling, it was easy to hear Sakura again. She was on the ground with her face buried in her hands, laughing so hard she could barely breathe.

Okay, maybe Neji had a point. Sasuke straightened up and cleared his throat, self-conscious.

"Well," a cracked voice rasped behind them. "Perhaps you should take my eyes, instead, then."

Sasuke and Naruto stumbled as they swung back around, and Sakura gasped, flowing up to her feet again.

"What would I want them for?" Sasuke demanded, the first thing that came to mind as he flinched at the sight of his brother and tried to close his heart to the burns over Itachi's exposed skin.

Itachi actually smiled. "You may want them to face our twice-great-grandfather."

The world froze around him and Sasuke couldn't hear anything but the rush of his own blood in his ears. His own blood. _Twice-great..._. "Uchiha Madara is dead," he whispered. "He died after his battle with the First."

"He stays out of sight, usually. But it's his hand that guides Akatsuki." Itachi's eyes were black, Sasuke observed, distracted. This couldn't be a hallucination. "I suppose he will accomplish my goal, in the end." Itachi looked up at the sky and sighed. "He thinks the villages will submit to him. But it will simply be war. The greatest war. That will do, I suppose." He smiled up at nothing. "So?"

Sasuke walked slowly to stand over Itachi, looking down at him, at that faint smile that was waiting for his answer. "The Uchiha," he started and choked on the name. Madara. A head of the clan, before he was banished. What _was_ the Uchiha clan, after all?

 _You're the last Uchiha, I don't see why you can't do whatever you please and call that what Uchihas do._

Sasuke actually huffed out half a laugh as Jiraiya's voice came back to him. Old pervert thought he had an answer for everything. He looked down at Itachi, who now had his brows raised a little in his burned face.

"No."

He called Chidori into his hand, tiny but focused, and slammed it down into Itachi's chest, over his heart. One spine-cracking spasm and it was over.

Over. His revenge was accomplished. He felt no satisfaction, and wondered for a dizzy breath if he was disrespecting the memory of his clan. Or perhaps he was just too tired. He was very tired. But then he caught Neji's eye, across the clearing, and the fog in his head parted a little. Something needed to be said, after all.

He straightened his shoulders and said, firmly. "The Uchiha do not use forbidden techniques. We uphold the laws of Konoha. At need, we execute them as well."

Neji nodded back to him, soberly, accepting his judgment for the village's noble clans.

Not revenge. Protection. To protect his people, whatever the cost. That was the duty of the Uchiha.

And the Uchiha were not dead. Sasuke managed a full breath.

Naruto laid a hand on his shoulder. "Hey. It's over. Okay?"

The Uchiha weren't dead, but his brother was—the last of his family. A shudder ripped through Sasuke and he reached out blindly, more grateful than he'd ever been before for Naruto's complete lack of decorum, the immediacy with which arms went around him and pulled him tight against his teammate. Sakura's hands spread against his back, rubbing slowly up and down in the rhythm Naruto had taught them to counter shock. "This part is over," she said softly. "Now you can come home. It's all right, Sasuke. We'll take you home safe."

She had gone away, too, and come home again. She understood. And Naruto wouldn't leave him. His team would bring him home.

Home to them. His family.

Another deep breath and the choking in his throat eased, the band around his chest loosened a little. "I'm okay," he whispered against Naruto's shoulder, husky. "Okay for now."

Naruto was looking suspicious and overprotective as Sasuke straightened up, but Sakura squeezed his shoulders one last time and let him go. Neji was tying the last knots of rope around Itachi's body, preparing it for carrying. "Ready?" he asked, tactfully looking down at the rope.

"Yeah," Sakura said for all of them. "Let's go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kishimoto's retconning of the Uchiha history in general was almost as hideously clunky as his retconning of Itachi in particular. There are too many conflicts with prior canon, and the result is too boring. So in this story the Sage of Six Paths, and the eternal enmity of the Senju and Uchiha, and the corollary that the Uchiha are Doomed to Do It Wrong... yeah, none of that happened. The Rinnengan is its own thing, because for pity's sake not every eye-technique needs to be related. The elders, and Danzou in particular, did indeed fear the clan's power, but there were no clan-wide plans for rebellion, Itachi was not assigned to kill the clan as some kind of sick attempt at "peace", none of that happened. Itachi is insane, period. The vast majority of the Uchiha were entirely honorable, if also rather messed up, as the noble shinobi clans do tend to be. And the whole go-round with Tobi did nothing but annoy me, and feels way too much like Kishimoto wondering what the heck to do next, so I'm ignoring all that. Akatsuki knows who Madara is, and there are no minions.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaara is revived, and Naruto and Sakura take Sasuke home to recover. Drama, Angst, More Death, Fluff, Light Porn.

When they reached the stone temple again, in the late, silvery light cast up by the swamp waters, Neji dumped Itachi's body next to Hoshigake's and the now headless bird-riding Akatsuki, and they went to join the others. Sand's shinobi all stood beside Gaara on a scrubby rise of hill.

Or at least, beside his body.

Even in his own daze, Sasuke drew closer to Naruto, trying to offer a little support. Naruto had been so determined to save his friend, his fellow host.

"Is he really...?" Naruto asked, voice rough.

Chiyo sighed and sat back on her heels beside the body. "You're a healer too, Naruto-kun. You know as well as I."

"It isn't _right_!" Naruto's hands clenched helplessly.

"No," she said, very softly. "No, it isn't." Her hands rested on Gaara's chest in a way that plucked at Sasuke's observation, even with the Sharingan closed down. That touch wasn't the farewell or silent plea for forgiveness of a medic who had failed. He'd seen that before. She held her hands like a healer preparing for a jutsu.

"Gaara," Kankurou whispered, kneeling on the other side of the body, face twisted with grief. The grief of losing his brother.

Sasuke remembered his promise to Temari and flinched.

"Kazekage-sama," Fuunotora said softly, folded hands pressed against her mouth. "He was taken because he tried to protect us instead of escaping."

"The other villages and hosts will know, now," Sakura offered, just as soft, eyes fixed on Gaara's body. "We'll find a way to destroy Akatsuki for this. That, at least."

"There may be something more." Chiyo's words dropped into the soft sounds of grief like pebbles into a pool.

Kankurou looked up with a jerk, and Naruto flung himself down beside her, all in one moment. "What?" Naruto demanded, eyes blazing. Chiyo looked back steadily. "You have great reserves of chakra," she said. "It may be enough, if you will lend me your strength."

"Anything," Naruto promised, tautly, reaching out to her, chakra already spilling into reddish visibility around his hands.

Kankurou whispered, voice harsh, "Chiyo-baasama..."

"Hush, boy," she told him with a faint smile. "It's my choice. I was the one who got Gaara into this mess, after all." She beckoned Naruto closer. "Feed your chakra to me, Naruto-kun. Don't falter. It will be a heavy draw; this is a deep technique." Softly she added, "And a forbidden one."

Naruto froze in mid-reach, eyes even wider than before. "Forbidden...?"

She smiled, quite serene, and Sasuke's heart twisted with the utter contrast between her expression and Itachi's mad calm. Chiyo's eyes were deep and shadowed, but content. "To bring back one who has already died, my own life must be given."

Naruto flinched back. "But—!"

Chiyo reached up and rapped him over the head with her knuckles. "You hush too," she scolded. "I said it was my choice, and it is. It's one you may face someday, too, though I will hope not. It's a choice that comes to very powerful healers in time of war, though, all too often. And war is come on us again, I can see that." She looked around at the Sand-nin standing, stunned, around her. "Understand. This is my gift to our village, that our leader may live and be strong, and we may not be deprived of his will and wisdom. I believe young Gaara has both those. Don't let the silly boy brood, clear?" She fixed a sharp eye on Kankurou and he swallowed.

"Yes, Chiyo-baasama," he said, husky.

Chiyo nodded briskly. "Good. Now, then." She raised a brow at Naruto, who was biting his lip hard. The thought prodded at Sasuke that his team wasn't just his anchor; he was theirs also, and Naruto obviously had no real idea why Chiyo had chosen this. He shook himself out of his daze and went to kneel beside Naruto. He was too tired to yell or argue, the way they normally would, so he settled for just thumping down beside Naruto and resting his forehead against Naruto's back, nearly clinging to his shoulders for balance.

"It isn't wrong," he whispered. "It isn't your fault, because you want him back. Okay? It's her choice. As a noble, she's chosen her duty to her village and clan and Kage. Help her do it."

Chiyo's mouth crooked. "You're so sharp you'll cut yourself, boy," she murmured. Sasuke arched a tired brow at her. She didn't exactly hide the signs that she was from one of the Sand's noble clans. The influence she and her brother had, the size of the compound he'd heard some Sand-nin talking about—and with access to an underground river, in this desert village—wasn't it obvious? His thoughts were wandering. He hauled them wearily back.

"You're sure?" Naruto said, low and uncertain.

Sasuke tightened his hands for a moment. If Naruto was sometimes his voice, maybe he was Naruto's history—all the things Naruto should have been taught, as the son of the Fourth, but never had been. "I'm sure," he said softly.

"Okay, then." Naruto scooted forward, and Sasuke swayed, reaching out to brace himself against the ground to keep from falling over. Hands tipped him back upright, though the hands themselves were shaking. He looked up to see Kakashi looking down at him, drawn and gray like Sasuke had never seen before. The corner of his visible eye was crinkled, but not with the usual smile lines—with something softer and sadder. This mission had wrung out a lot of hearts, he thought distantly.

He managed to straighten up a bit, at least long enough for Sakura to kneel beside him and wrap an arm around him. They watched Naruto's hands pressed over Chiyo's on Gaara's chest.

"It was a technique for puppets," Kankurou muttered, broad shoulders tight, eyes fixed on Gaara. "To give them life. But it always cost a life. Chiyo-baasama forbid it herself."

Light grew and refracted around Naruto and Chiyo's hands. Sasuke wondered what he would see if he'd been able to muster chakra for the Sharingan. Gai had come to stand with them, one shoulder under Kakashi's; their commander must have spent all his reserves, too, to be accepting support like that in public. Sasuke leaned against Sakura and blinked. Lots of public. There were... more people here than there had been.

The rise of ground before the temple was filling with new figures, one after another. Shinobi of the Sand, he realized, slowly taking in the uniforms they wore. One of them was Temari.

"Gaara!"

Kankurou caught her. "It's okay," he said, low and rough, as she tugged against his grip on her shoulders, dark, scared eyes fixed on their brother. "It's okay. Chiyo-baasama has him." His mouth twisted. "And Naruto, too."

Whispers ran through the tripled crowd as he told her what had happened, that four of Akatsuki were confirmed dead. That Sand had killed their own renegade, and Leaf theirs.

"I couldn't confine Hoshigake," Gai was saying quietly to Kakashi, behind them. "I only barely defeated him, and that took opening the seventh gate. Nothing we have available could have held him, if he'd regained awareness." For once that booming, bluff voice was hard. Dark.

"Best that you killed him, then." Kakashi's voice was cool. "We'll see if we can make out anything of their plans from what the four of them said during battle."

The light around the two healers faded and Kankurou hurried forward to catch Chiyo as she fell. Naruto looked grim and drawn, across from her, hands still resting on Gaara's chest. "I'll look out for him for you," he whispered, eyes on the old woman's body. "I promise."

From the crowd, Chiyo's brother came forward and took her from Kankurou, laying her out carefully a few steps away with some low, murmured words that Sasuke thought were probably goodbye.

Gaara stirred and breathed. By the time he opened his eyes, he was wrapped in Temari's arms as she hid tears against his shoulder. "Nee-san," he murmured, and that pulled a single, muffled sob out of her.

"Hey," Naruto told Gaara, softly, smile crooked. "Everyone was just coming to save you." He looked around at the crowd and Gaara followed his glance, eyes a bit wide. Noise broke over the crowd, sounding everywhere of relief as Gaara slowly stood with Naruto's hand under his arm.

"Our turn," Sakura murmured. "Can you stand?"

"I'm not the one who died," Sasuke muttered. "Just help me up."

So he was on his feet to offer his respects to Chiyo's spirit, as Gaara requested. That was proper. Naruto came to join his team as Gaara's siblings and people closed around their Kazekage, and Sasuke reached out and hauled him closer. "It was what she wanted. Her spirit thanks you," he murmured, leaning against Naruto.

Naruto scrubbed a rough sleeve across his eyes and muttered, "You noble types are really crazy, you know that?" He leaned back, though, and some of the prickly tension Sasuke had felt, seeing Gaara dead and tossed aside at Akatsuki's hand just for the sake of his beast, settled in face of Naruto's solid, living presence.

That would not happen to Naruto. Not ever. Sasuke had stopped Itachi, he'd kept his family alive, he'd do it again as often as he had to.

"...and if we have another healer around who can stop decomposition," he heard Kakashi saying off to one side, "we'll take Itachi's body back to Konoha."

Sasuke spoke without thinking. "No." He turned to face Kakashi and two of the Sand shinobi, who were all looking at him, a bit startled.

"We don't dare leave one of our advanced bloodlines just lying around," Kakashi observed, brow raised.

"Then burn him here." Certainty spilled through Sasuke with the words, and he straightened a little between Naruto and Sakura. "He chose this," waving a hand at the temple and, by implication, all of Akatsuki's works. "Let him stay here. He is banished from the clan, and his spirit is none of ours." Against his side, he felt Sakura relax, and her arm tighten around him.

"All right," Kakashi said after a long, thoughtful moment. "Naruto. Do you still have enough chakra for a sustained fire?"

Naruto glanced questioningly at Sasuke and, at his nod, patted Sasuke's shoulder and stepped forward. "Yeah."

The rest of the Leaf teams gathered around Sasuke as he watched Itachi's body burn, wild and hot. Considerably hotter than he'd expected, actually, and his mouth twitched as he caught the vindictive glare Naruto was giving the body.

"What was it Tsunade-sama said about him?" Sakura murmured with a hint of laughter in her voice, apparently having noticed too.

"A pathologically overprotective beast host, who can be counted on to follow right after any kidnapping, setting forests on fire with his chakra as he goes," Sasuke recited, having had exactly the same moment in mind.

"Not that you have a lot of room to talk, yourself," she added.

They were smiling as Naruto turned back to them, and he smiled too, some of the tight lines around his mouth relaxing again.

* * *

It was a slow journey home. They went back to Sand, first, so Naruto could make sure Gaara was all right and Kakashi could talk the Sand Council into returning Hoshigake's body to Mist intact.

"We will need good will among the great villages very badly and very soon," he'd told them bluntly, and eventually they'd agreed. Sasuke thought Kakashi-sensei really was very good at diplomatic stuff when he wanted to be—though he had no idea why it made Kakashi flinch when Sakura voiced the same thought out loud.

Kakashi and Sasuke were both still tired and had to go slowly. Lee's ankle and hand had been set but weren't fully healed. Gai had pushed himself too hard while he was still recovering from the Eight Gates and had been yelled at very firmly by an exasperated Sand medic and forbidden to run at more than half speed. Neji was trying to hide it, but he was still wincing now and then from taking even an interrupted Tsukuyomi.

And Sasuke's mind wasn't focusing the way it really should. Akatsuki was out there, and here was Leaf's host in the open and only lightly guarded. He had work to do. He had a clan to re-found. He should be focused.

Instead, little random moments replayed in his mind's eye. The expression on Gaara's face when he overheard some of the Sand girls squealing over him. Sakura's excited remarks over dinner one night about fish in the underground river. A curl of sand lifting Naruto's hand up to meet Gaara's, when they parted. The Naka priestesses dancing in the empty streets of the Uchiha compound.

He nearly stumbled over his own feet at that memory, and Naruto was instantly beside him, frowning worriedly.

"Hey, are you okay? Do you need to rest? Hey, everyone, we're taking a break now!"

"I don't need to rest," Sasuke started.

"Medic says!" Naruto snapped, glaring at him.

"Use that too often, and it isn't going to work some day when you need it," Sasuke grumbled, but the group was already alighting at the foot of a tree and he resigned himself to a break whether he needed it or not.

And maybe it was best not to be running, for a moment. He leaned back against the tree and absently accepted the water bottle Naruto pressed into his hand, and looked into the past.

He hadn't thought about the cleansing in years. The village had paid for the priests and priestesses of the Naka Shrine to cleanse the compound, after the bodies were taken away. To burn the handful of buildings that couldn't be cleansed. He had vague memories of someone talking to him about the clan's accounts, of signing something to pay for an auxiliary shrine, and for a priest to tend the murdered dead of Uchiha until their violence was appeased.

And the compound had had to be cleansed so that people... so that people would move in. He hadn't thought about that, either. Not past the decision never to visit, never to see other people living in his clan's place.

That was not, he understood in the abstract, any way for the head of a clan to act. But he didn't know if he could do any differently.

"Hey." Sakura, sitting next to him, nudged his shoulder with hers. "You doing okay?" She was looking away into the trees instead of at him, which he was glad for.

"It's... there's... something I need to think about."

"Not surprised." She gave him a little, sidelong smile. "You know we're not leaving you, right?"

Sasuke snorted. "Since the two of you have barely left me alone in the _bathroom_ for the last three days, I kind of figured, yeah." His mouth had curved up at the corners, though, and Sakura looked satisfied.

"Just making sure."

Sasuke was quiet for a moment. "After we get home," he finally said. "Stay with me."

Her eyes darkened for a moment, and she nodded.

Sasuke closed his water bottle and stood up. "Let's get going, then."

* * *

Eventually, they got back to Konoha and Kakashi went off to make reports and Naruto bullied the hospital staff into letting them all go after a check-up. He was getting good at that, Sasuke reflected, watching him wave his arms vigorously and lecture a faintly amused-looking doctor about all the tests and observations he'd made of the team on the way back.

And then he was finally home, walking through the darkening streets of his village as the lamps lit here and there, and climbing the stairs to his apartment with his teammates beside him.

Sakura promptly spread his double futon and pushed him down onto it, settling behind him. "All right," she said firmly, strong hands kneading his shoulders. "We're home. There's no one else to see. You can let go."

"Knew it," Naruto grumbled from the kitchen nook.

"You just hush up and cook," Sakura directed.

Sasuke didn't know what he wanted to say until he heard the words, "I really loved my brother," coming out of his mouth. Sakura took in a quick breath at that and wrapped her arms around him. Sasuke was glad for that; it kept the shaking in his stomach from taking his whole body. "I loved him," he said again, slowly, painfully. "And then he turned into... that."

"Maybe something happened to him," Naruto suggested, from the direction of the stove. "Like Orochimaru tried to happen to you."

Sasuke's breath caught. He didn't often think of that, these days—of the months when he'd been going, in retrospect, slowly crazy. "Oh."

Sakura's arms stayed strong around him, stilling the shaking, and he leaned back against her, just breathing. After a long, silent moment while she rocked him gently, Sakura asked, "Sasuke, what age did your clan inherit at? I mean... if there was any kind of recognition or ritual for the heir, when did that happen?" Her voice was slow and thoughtful.

"Thirteen," Sasuke answered, automatically; another reason Orochimaru had gotten to him so easily, that year when, if he hadn't been the last one alive, he should have been acknowledged, should have taken on more responsibilities. And then he froze. Thirteen. When he'd been seven. The year that his father and Itachi had started to quarrel. The year that his brother changed.

"Sasuke?" Sakura asked softly, one hand rubbing his back steadily.

"He changed, then," Sasuke whispered, starting blindly at the wall. "He did. He and Tou-san argued. That... that was the year his best friend died." A shudder ripped through him. "For the Mangekyou Sharingan... he said...."

"Said what?"

"Itachi killed him." Sasuke tried to swallow, and found his throat too dry. "That night... when we fought... he said to go to the shrine. I found records about it. You have to kill the person closest to you."

"To achieve that second Sharingan?" Sakura asked, and he just nodded.

"Well, but hang on." Naruto came to the futon with hot mugs of ramen, of course, for all of them. Sasuke folded shaking hands around his. "Kakashi-sensei has one of those. He used it while we were chasing Deidara; that's what got him in the end. Whoa, hey!" He put a fast hand under Sasuke's cup to keep it from spilling as Sasuke jerked forward, staring at him.

"I told him," Sasuke whispered, cold tightening on his chest. "After that mission to Hidden Stone, I told him, I asked him to help me unlock the records. But he couldn't..." _Please no, please not again._

Naruto's snort broke the panicked circle of his thoughts. "Of course Kakashi-sensei hasn't killed anyone!" He paused. "Well, not like _that_. I mean... he was in the last war. He's killed people; he's a shinobi after all. But not like that."

No. Not like that, not Kakashi-sensei, the one who had taught him how not to listen to Itachi. Sasuke slowly relaxed again and managed a sip of his broth without spilling it, limp with relief.

"So there must be some other way to achieve it, then," Sakura pointed out.

He blinked. "There... was something about that. I remember. The record of the Mangekyou, it said something about killing being the forbidden way, almost like there was more than one. But it didn't say what any others might be, so I thought it must not mean that."

"Well, it's a forbidden technique," Naruto said reasonably. "They wouldn't want to say too much."

"So we know Kakashi-sensei figured out a different way; good," Sakura said firmly. "But that timing... I think something must have happened to Itachi. Something he had to do for the ritual or something he found out, then."

"Maybe it was the clan records themselves," Sasuke said, low, looking down into his noodles. "The records that were sealed in the shrine. I didn't know about them until Itachi told me. They were secret."

"He graduated young, didn't he?" Sakura murmured. "And then went into ANBU, and he'd been a kid during the last war. I bet he was under a lot of pressure. Maybe it was just too much."

Maybe the clan had been Itachi's anchor, Sasuke thought, and maybe finding something like the Mangekyou in its history had just been too much. But a lot of people had been under heavy pressure and none of _them_ had murdered all their relatives. So it had to be something about Itachi himself too. That was the thought that led him to mutter, "I wonder if it'll happen to me, too."

Naruto thumped his cup down by the bed. "No, it won't," he said, very definitely, and rocked forward on his knees to wrap Sasuke in his arms. "You lost everything once, and it didn't happen. Even when people were trying to make it happen, it didn't happen! And we won't _let it_." He leaned in and kissed Sasuke, gentle and awkward, and said, more quietly, "Okay?"

Sasuke let himself lean into them, into the rare, serious softness of Naruto's eyes holding his and Sakura's hands on his shoulders, and whispered, "Yeah. Okay." His team. His anchor. His... family. They would keep him safe from this, too.

"Good. Then finish eating," Naruto ordered, giving him the medic-look instead.

Sasuke picked up his mug of ramen, raising his brows. "This is your idea of good nutrition, as a healer, is it?"

"Hey, it's salt, sugar, and carbohydrates!" Naruto protested. "What more do you want?" He sounded indignant, but he was grinning.

Sakura leaned against his shoulder giggling, and Sasuke ate a bite of ramen and felt himself settling into his right place.

* * *

The season was turning before Sasuke could bring himself to visit the Uchiha compound. When he did he found that it wasn't, any more.

He'd known, in theory, that part of the reason the village had paid for the cleansing of the compound from the deaths was so that people could live there again. And he'd been aware that he was, technically, the landlord of many people living on the compound's ground. But he'd never paid any attention to that. The bank had assigned a trustee to the Uchiha accounts, there was more than enough money in them when he needed some, and he'd left it at that.

Now he actually saw what the figures on those quarterly statements he'd stuffed away without reading meant.

Parts of the compound were still empty, but in other places there were people: slow extensions of the surrounding neighborhoods, or a store reopened and a clutch of houses reoccupied around it. There were people walking in the streets, talking and arguing and laughing. Live, solid people, out in the sunlight under the changing leaves.

They just weren't Uchiha.

He recognized every meter of this place, and it was all strange to him. The clash of past and present was so disorienting he had to stop now and then while Naruto or Sakura gave him their hands to grip until he could walk again.

They stayed close to him, and he caught them, once or twice, silently warning off someone whose eyes widened with recognition on seeing him. He was glad of that; if someone had asked him if he was Uchiha Sasuke, he wasn't entirely sure what he would have answered. Even his own self felt strange to him, today.

Finally they came to the river, and the Naka shrine, and Sasuke stopped and stared.

There were people here, too.

The auxiliary shrine was built on a broad walk around the side of the main hall. It was well tended; the stone was clean and the paint bright. And there were people here. A woman stood before the offertory box, hands pressed together. A young couple were waiting quietly for her to finish. Two mothers and their children stood at the gate talking, smiling, perhaps waiting for the woman who prayed.

No one was afraid. No one walked too softly. They weren't here to propitiate angry ghosts. They were here because it was the compound's shrine, here to honor the clan who had held the land they lived on.

It was so much as it should be, so _right_ , that he had to reach out for Naruto and Sakura again, and they gathered him into their arms, quick and protective.

He took what felt like the first full breath that day and said, "I need to come back here. This... I need to be here again. Here, where it's new."

He had feared, for years, that if he set foot back in the compound the weight of memory, the weight of that night, would crush him. And, at the same time, he had feared the intrusion of others, of outsiders who would desecrate the memory of his clan and his vengeance. Instead he had found... life. Life going on and yet honoring what had been, what had been his.

That was what, finally, made the tears he'd denied for almost ten years break through.

Naruto and Sakura held him through it, warm arms around him and quiet murmurs without meaningful words. And it was Sakura who found a tea shop inside the district for them and made him sit down where he could see the people passing while Naruto got hot tea and some sesame dango for them.

"This might be a nice place to live, right around here," Sakura said softly, looking around. "One of the empty areas is near here. You could take something at the edge of that." She smiled at him over the rim of her cup. "And have room to expand."

The thought, the mental image of a house known but not too familiar, was a good one. More than that, the thought of having _clan_ again, or at least the plans and space for one, made some cranky sense of something-off at the bottom of his heart subside.

Naruto leaned his elbows on his knees and smiled at Sasuke, sidelong. "So, hey, will you give us discount rental rates, if we move in around here?"

Sasuke couldn't help smiling, even if it did stretch the rawness of his cheeks. "You can pay me part of it in babysitting." The appalled look on Naruto's face made him laugh.

"Oh, go on, Naruto, you'd be good at it," Sakura said, ruthlessly. "And it's not like I'm going to take too much time off for it." She hesitated suddenly and added, not quite looking at either of them as her cheeks turned pink. "I mean. If you want me to. I figure I would be okay with it. Having Uchiha kids."

Sasuke's face heated, and he had to clear his throat. "I'd like that. Yeah." He had a hard time imagining anyone else, though he supposed he'd better, eventually. He doubted Sakura had any intention of retiring to play clan-mother.

"Oh well, if they're yours, I guess it's okay; I'll watch 'em," Naruto muttered, also a little red himself. They all drank their tea in flustered silence.

As the thought settled in, though, Sasuke had to admit it felt good. It felt right.

 _His family._ This time, the thought didn't hurt.

* * *

Sasuke had barely settled on a suitable house when Sakura was recalled to work by Intelligence. Naruto wasn't at all sure he approved of this.

"I'd tell them where they can stick this assignment," she told them, driving her hands through her short hair in frustration, "but Tsunade-sama is the one who requested me. It must be important."

"Can you tell us what it is?" Sasuke asked quietly.

"It's a diplomatic mission, sort of. To Hidden Valley, to tell them about the Akatsuki base in their country so they can take care of it."

Naruto frowned. Okay, yeah, that was important. But so was their team! "Can we come with you?"

Sakura's mouth tilted and she leaned back against one of the trees of the training ground with a thump. "They might let you go, but no one is going to pass Sasuke for duty yet, and I'm not leaving him here without you to look after him."

Sasuke didn't say anything at all to that and Naruto scooted over on the log they shared to lean against him, worried. Sakura came and sat on her heels in front of Sasuke, resting her hands on his shoulders. "It's okay," she said softly. "Kakashi-sensei is leading this mission. Even if we run into any more of Akatsuki, none of the rest of them are going to go after me to get a lever on you, right?"

Sasuke relaxed a little, and Naruto's eyes widened. Was _that_ what he'd been worried about? Sakura looked over at him meaningfully. "Take care of Sasuke while I'm gone, all right?"

Stay with him so he had at least one of them in view, Naruto was betting that meant, and nodded firmly. He could do that.

Sasuke snorted. "Shouldn't you be telling me to look after him, so he doesn't eat nothing but ramen and store bought onigiri while you're gone?"

That sounded more like their Sasuke and Naruto grinned even as he drew himself up indignantly. "Hey, I can cook!"

"Yes, you can," Sasuke answered blandly. "You just don't."

Sakura laughed and everything was okay again, even a day later when they saw her off at the gates. Sasuke got quieter again once the gates closed, though, so Naruto steered them toward a takoyaki stand just to make him roll his eyes. It worked _and_ the food tasted great. Complete win.

"If you're going to hang around," Sasuke told him, having obviously figured that part out, "you can help me pack. With luck it'll be done by the time Sakura gets back, and she can lend a hand with moving."

"Okay," he agreed around a mouthful of dumpling, and chalked up another win at the long-suffering look Sasuke gave him for his lack of manners.

Someone had to keep Sasuke from getting too serious, after all.

Packing to move was strange. Naruto was pretty sure it violated the laws of physics, because even when there was as much boxes of stuff as there had been space to put stuff, there was still stuff left. It was also, he decided after no more than an hour, not a good thing for Sasuke to be doing when he was already in a low mood. The third time he caught Sasuke sitting there on the mats, staring at a photo or a book or a kunai, he decided it was time to take measures. Sakura had entrusted Sasuke to him, after all.

The problem was what measures, and he thought about that as he wrapped up plates and bowls, of which Sasuke had about five times as many as he did. Sasuke wouldn't agree to food again so soon. He might agree to some training, but if he'd gotten into the wrong mood that might just make him even more dark and broody, the way he got sometimes when he was seeing ghosts in place of his actual target.

Well, if those were out, there was always their _other_ popular team activity.

Naruto grinned, tucking away the last bowl. Yeah. That should work. He closed the box, stacked it with the rest and strolled over to where Sasuke was sorting his shelves. "Hey, Sasuke?"

"What?" When Sasuke looked up, Naruto took the opening and swooped down to kiss him.

Sasuke made a startled sound, one fist closing in Naruto's shirt as if to throw him. Naruto laughed, which made the kiss a little odd for a moment, and slumped forward, letting his weight bear Sasuke back to the tatami. Sasuke growled at that, eyes lighting up properly, and rolled.

They half wrestled over the floor for a few turns, laughing and groping, until Naruto got his hand into Sasuke's pants. That made Sasuke's eyes half close, and he leaned up on his elbows, grinding down against Naruto. "Mmm."

Naruto grinned. "I win," he declared, breathless.

"Oh you do, huh?" Sasuke looked down at him thoughtfully, eyes glinting, and finally smiled. "Try this, then." He closed both hands around Naruto's face and kissed him. A different kiss than usual.

It was slow and... gentle. Coaxing. And something else, too. Sasuke's mouth moved over his carefully, and his hands cradled Naruto's face like... like Naruto was something precious he didn't want to drop. That thought made a little sound catch in the back of his throat, and Sasuke's arms wrapped around him with that same care.

"I know it sounds weird for me, of all people, to say," Sasuke murmured, resting his forehead against Naruto's. "But not everything has to be a competition."

Naruto swallowed, eyes wide. "O... okay." Slowly, he wrapped his arms around Sasuke, too, and it made his heart do turny-flippy things when Sasuke relaxed, letting Naruto take his weight.

"Itachi," Sasuke said quietly. "That... that wasn't a competition either. But I _want_ to be better than him."

"You are!" Naruto said fiercely, holding Sasuke tighter. "You already are!"

"Mm." He could feel Sasuke smiling a little against his neck. "Not stronger yet, though."

That felt wrong to Naruto, and he thought about it. "You were in the end, though," he finally said, slowly. "You won, Sasuke. That's stronger, isn't it?"

"I couldn't block Amaterasu, though," Sasuke objected and Naruto frowned.

"So what? You _won_. Quit trying to find reasons for it not to count!" He pummeled Sasuke's shoulder for a moment before wrapping his arms back around him. "Besides, Sakura looked in the Intelligence records and said it sounded like that Mangekyou thing is really dangerous and makes you go blind. Is that true? You'd better not be thinking of doing that if it's true."

After a taut moment, Sasuke snorted and relaxed over him again. "Yeah, okay. I guess... I did win." He leaned up on an elbow, looking down at Naruto soberly. "And yes. The Mangekyou Sharingan leads to blindness if it's used too often. I want to find a different way."

"Well that's okay, then." Naruto settled his arms comfortably around Sasuke's waist. "We'll help."

"Yeah," Sasuke said softly. "I know you will." He slid back down to lie against Naruto and added, a bit muffled against his shoulder, "Thanks."

Naruto smiled and just held him. "Yeah."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little changes: Kakashi has slightly better aim than in canon because I’m not going to faff around with multiple rounds against Akatsuki, and Gai’s fight with Kisame goes very much the same as in canon except that it’s the real thing, which means he has to open up another level to beat him. I’m thinking Sasori’s fight also goes quite similarly, only Chiyo has Fuunotora and her teams instead of Sakura. Since those are all basically canon-replays, I’m not going to do them up in detail. You already know pretty much what happens.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The larger ninja world starts talking about Akatsuki, and what to do about them. Naruto is hustled off to the Island Turtle with his team, where he meets B and reaches a certain cooperation with the Nine-tails. Drama, Angst.
> 
>  **Warning:** features brief section of suicidal thoughts.

Kakashi slid past the Hokage's door rather warily and waved a handful of message-paper strips at her. "Latest batch from the relays; Shizune asked me to bring them up with me." He swapped himself reflexively with the coat hanger as a cup went hurtling past where his head would have been and smashed into shrapnel against the wall. "I can see why she did," he added.

Tsunade stood over her desk, clenched fists planted on it, breathing hard. "Give them here."

"You're sure about that?" But he came out of the corner and handed over the slips.

Tsunade flung herself back down in her chair hard enough to roll it back from the desk and started reading, glowering down at the paper with tight lips. "Idiot," she hissed, tossing one over her shoulder. The next one got a sour "Moron!". The third didn't rate anything more than a glare, but the fourth shot her up onto her feet again yelling, "Don't you try to patronize me you dried up old fart!"

"The other villages still aren't responding well?" he hazarded. An easy guess; the traffic of messenger birds had been heavy over the past few months and every time he saw the Hokage she seemed more pissed off.

She stalked around her office, now, glaring at anything that fell in her way. Kakashi prudently removed himself to the top of her file cabinet.

"I'm going to have to haul them in to a meeting in person," she finally growled. "Gaara is willing, of course, and I think the Mizukage is too, but that blowhard A and Oonoki, old sot that he is, are being stubborn. They don't think Akatsuki can truly threaten a strong village, because they'll never be able to control or secure the loyalty of more than one or two hosts."

"And the smaller villages?" Kakashi asked. Presumably, with enough of the small village Masters on her side, Tsunade would be able to swing even the other Kage to her course. He had a difficult time imagining that many of the Masters were truly willing to have Akatsuki running around with any tailed beasts at all.

Tsunade's lip curled. "So far, I've mostly gotten variations on 'you first'. None of them want to be caught in between if the great countries disagree badly enough over this to go back to war."

"Hard to blame them," Kakashi murmured. Tsunade just snarled.

"And then there's the Master of the Waterfall, who says that, if Akatsuki is behind this, the Leaf must have hired them! Because we're the only one whose host hasn't been attacked!" She paced another round, hands flexing ominously. "Hanzou refuses to get involved at all, the bastard. He thinks Rain can hold out no matter what Akatsuki does, and if we all reduce our strength taking Akatsuki down without him all the better!" She snatched up the sandstone paperweight from her desk and slowly crushed it to rubble in her hand, growling.

"It was already sure that Rain wouldn't get involved," Kakashi couldn't help pointing out, though he kept a cautious eye on the erstwhile paperweight. "They never go beyond their borders, these days." Which was, honestly, a nice change for everyone else.

Tsunade let the rubble fall and snorted. "He's gotten paranoid ever since that civil war in Rain. I was kind of hoping he'd bite this time, though; the leader of the other side become a member of Akatsuki, after all. But no such luck." She finally sat back down, leaning back with a sigh. "The one bright spot is the Master of Sound. He seems to have seen this coming, and his latest message offered Hidden Sound as a meeting place for us."

"Mm. About as neutral a location as possible," Kakashi agreed. A new village with no axes to grind and no history of war with anyone but Leaf, and as close to centrally located as possible. It disturbed him just a little that he was starting to know all this off-hand.

"Exactly. And if A and Oonoki know that Gaara and Terumii and I are all going, they'll come too just out of suspicion."

"Not the most productive mindset for negotiations," Kakashi murmured.

"No, it's not. Which is why," she fixed him with a sharp eye, "you and Nara Shikaku are coming with me as aides and bodyguards."

Kakashi froze and then tried to pretend he hadn't. "Taking the Jounin Commander makes sense," he said as casually as he could, "but wouldn't someone like Jiraiya-san be more impressive as your other attendant?" Someone who was _not him_. He'd figured out exactly what administrative job she thought he'd be good for once she started sending him out as her personal representative so often, and he'd been doing his damndest to deflect her.

"Jiraiya is out looking for more of Akatsuki's bases and hideouts. And quit playing dumb," she told him sternly. "I won't live long enough to see Naruto come off active duty and learn the rest of this job, and I've come to the sad conclusion that there's no one else qualified. It's going to have to be you in this chair after me. Live with it."

"The jounin have to confirm the Hokage," Kakashi said a little desperately. He couldn't do this; he knew himself, he knew how deeply he bonded to his teams even when he'd tried not to, taking on the entire village would kill him. "Are you really sure they'll—"

"They approve of you more than anyone else," she cut him off. "Shikaku won't have it; I asked. Jiraiya's refused it twice and he'll probably be dead before me the way he lives, and I won't see it go to Danzou."

That shut him up. He'd been trying, for years, to get proof of what he was sure Danzou was doing, and the thought of that man in charge of his village sent a sharp prickle of rage down his nerves. Even taking on a commander's responsibility for the whole village, crushing as he knew it would be, was better than that. "Yes, Hokage-sama," he gave in at last, low.

"Better." She waved a hand at him. "Go tell Shikaku to start packing while I get the messages ready."

Kakashi nodded quietly and slipped out, trying not to feel like doom had come to hover over his shoulder.

* * *

Kakashi watched five Kage and ten attendants all trying to keep an eye on each other as the Master of Hidden Sound led them up a flight of wide, spiraling tower stairs. At least, he reflected, this meeting promised some amusement. They finally emerged at the top of the tower and he raised interested brows. There was a curving hall of red stone, with narrow windows in the outer wall at regular intervals, and a single door in front of them. Naridasu turned to his gathered guests.

"This room has only one door, and the tower below it is solid stone for two floors. We are high enough to see any attempt at attack or eavesdropping coming. Given that security, I believe this meeting will be," he paused judiciously and finally decided on, "least chaotic if only the Kage are present, and your attendants stand guard in the hall here."

There was a silent moment, full of sidelong looks and suspicious frowns, before Gaara spoke up. "That will be quite acceptable." He nodded briefly to Temari and Kankurou, and paced forward to the door of the meeting room. He paused on the threshold to look over his shoulder with bland inquiry.

Kakashi smirked just a little. Gaara was learning politics very quickly; he was impressed.

"It seems reasonable, yes," Terumii, the Mizukage, murmured, and waved off the muttered protests of her older attendant.

"Fine," the Raikage growled, stomping forward, and Tsunade sauntered after him, nearly grinning.

Oonoki of Hidden Rock stumped after them, muttering complaints about stairs and his back and insolent young whippersnappers, completely ignoring his attendants. The young woman who had come with him rolled her eyes.

"Well," the older of the two from Cloud said slowly, as the door closed. "I suppose we should spread out and each take an approach to watch, then."

No one moved. Kakashi sighed to himself; he hoped Tsunade knew what she was getting herself into, trying to pull together some international cooperation. Well, since it was unfortunately clear that he wasn't going to be able to escape politics much longer himself, he supposed he'd better start doing something to make it work.

He raised his forehead protector to show his Sharingan.

A frisson of tension swept the group.

Slowly, Kakashi reached into a pocket of his vest.

Hands dropped to hidden weapons or slid toward scrolls. The older of the Mist nin flicked up his own eye patch to reveal a Byakugan. The younger of the Cloud nin slid his hands together into the Ram, expression grim.

Kakashi pulled out the latest _Icha Icha_ book and flipped it open. He smiled sunnily at the chokes of absolute disbelief and the way a few stances wobbled. "Well! Clearly, the pair from Mist should take the stairs, as the Byakugan will see even an approach that's cloaked in illusion." He nodded cheerfully to the young Cloud nin, who was looking outraged, and the elder, who was looking thoughtful and had a hand on the younger's shoulder. "And since illusion appears to be one of your specialties, perhaps Cloud should take the opposite approach, so we're as well covered as possible by the sensing specialists."

Everyone was staring, except for Temari who was looking grudgingly impressed.

"Can't take you anywhere," Shikaku muttered, through the hand he'd clapped over his face.

Kakashi flipped pages to find his place and started strolling along the curve of the hall. "We'll take the left, if that's agreeable."

"Hatake Kakashi," Temari said, in a tone that suggested that was all the comment needed, and clapped Kankurou on the shoulder. "Sand will take the right."

After a moment of vibrating conflict, the young woman from Rock hissed something annoyed, and probably very rude, under her breath and stomped off after Temari, dragging the large young man who was her partner along. Kakashi nodded with approval. With a Sharingan on the left, it was the right that should have the extra pair to watch. If that girl was who he thought she was, Rock would be well served when she eventually took over as Tsuchikage. He settled his back against the wall of the meeting room, noting with satisfaction that he could see both Mist and Cloud teams from the corners of his eyes, and turned a page.

Shikaku slumped against the wall next to him. "May the Hokage live for a hundred years," he said, low and fervent, "because I don't want to be the one who has to pick up after you, when you take over."

Some bass roaring reverberated through the wall, followed by Tsunade's more piercing shout of, "You never hired them because you were doing the dirty work with your own hands, now sit down and shut up and listen!"

"You sure I'd be worse than Tsunade-hime?" Kakashi asked, delicately turning another page. Shikaku gave the book a dour look.

"Yes, Kakashi-kun, I'm very sure. Don't think that's going to stop me from approving you, though, no matter how cack-brained you try to act."

Well, the Nara clan was known for their intelligence, after all. Kakashi sighed and tucked the book away, giving up his pretense of frivolousness. That reflex of concealment was one he might just have to break, now, anyway—at least among his own people. Instead, he amused himself trying to follow the progression of the Kage's arguments by the things that were shouted loudly enough to be heard through the stone walls.

The howl of "Madara!" was more than one person, he thought. So Tsunade had decided to tell them of Itachi's words, unconfirmed though they were.

A shattering crunch followed by a softer but sustained impact against the wall was, he thought, most likely the Raikage breaking something and the Mizukage taking exception.

It was only a guess, but he thought that Tsunade's shriek of "Absolutely not!" was most likely in response to a proposal that the two remaining hosts be killed to keep their beasts out of Akatsuki's hands. At least, it was followed by a cracked shout of "You're naive!" from the Tsuchikage, and everything Kakashi knew of the old man suggested the kind of ruthlessness that would think killing the hosts was perfectly reasonable.

Those shouts were followed, though, by a long period of someone speaking low and steady. Either Gaara or Terumii, Kakashi thought.

It wasn't long after that that the door opened again, and all of the attendants gathered quickly to their Kage again. The Raikage was frowning, but that was nothing unusual. The Mizukage looked relieved, as did Tsunade herself; negotiations must have succeeded well enough to go on with. The Kazekage looked as calm as ever, but the Tsuchikage was watching him with thoughtful eyes that weren't as hard as they had been when they all went in. Kakashi wondered what Gaara had said to the others, to put that expression on the face of a hard-bitten old shinobi like Oonoki.

Tsunade beckoned him. "We're going to sequester Naruto and Cloud's Killer Bee under a multi-national guard while all of us work on flushing out Akatsuki in our own countries. I think the smaller countries will be willing to participate, now, with Sound to lead the way." She scowled. "And Hanzou will damn well keep them out of Rain if I have to go bend the old bastard's ear about it in person. At any rate, I want you to find people for our part of the hosts' guard."

"How many?" Kakashi asked, already tallying in his head who he could truly trust with Naruto's safety. It couldn't be just anyone, even now. He wondered if he could convince Jiraiya to command the detachment.

"At least a dozen from each of the great nations," the Raikage rumbled. He nodded at the older of the Cloud attendants. "Darui, you'll lead ours. Take Samui and her team, too. Keep my brother safe." Darui nodded soberly.

The Mizukage had a hand on her younger attendant's arm. "Choujuurou, I'll want both you and Suigetsu to go; try to keep him out of trouble." The boy looked dubious, and Kakashi wondered whether this Suigetsu was another of the Swordsmen; all the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist tended to be a little wild. Maybe it was the tooth filing that did it to them.

The Tsuchikage was already stumping toward the stairs. "Kurotsuchi! Akatsuchi! Hurry up, we're going. And Kurotsuchi, fetch your father when we get home. He's going to be in charge of our unit." He gave her a beady look. "You're going too." The girl groaned and he glared. "And don't complain! You're not the one having to take creaky old hips down these damn stairs again..." His complaints trailed down the spiral stairwell.

"Temari," Gaara said quietly. "For everything Naruto's done for us... keep him safe." Temari drew herself up and saluted sharply.

"So where are we putting them?" Shikaku asked as Tsunade followed Oonoki down the stairs.

Tsunade's mouth quirked. "Well. I suppose you could say they're taking a cruise."

* * *

Naruto stared around the dark, wooded crags of the island, wide eyed. "This is _really_ a turtle?"

"Indeed. I'd heard of it," Jiraiya said behind him, "but never visited. Outsiders have never been welcome. Fascinating."

The old pervert was showing his true colors, Naruto thought, with an affectionate glance. For all he acted like he didn't have a thought in his head but the next drink and the next pair of boobs, there was a lot more to him. Even Sasuke admitted that, though it just seemed to make him that much more pissed off over the pervy act. He was giving Jiraiya That Look this very moment—the frustrated one that hinted he might try to strangle the man with his own ponytail.

"The encampment is this way," their guide, Motoi, said meaningfully, and Naruto sighed and trailed along with everyone else, gawking around as they went. This was one _huge_ turtle.

" _What_ did I just step in?" Ino's voice echoed up the line of Leaf shinobi.

"Please be careful of the island's wildlife while you're here," Motoi added blandly.

"Big animals all around, huh?" Naruto asked, with perfect innocence, and grinned when Sakura had to stifle giggles.

"Very big," Motoi agreed. "B-sama has tamed them, and they seem to accept the encampment for his sake, but they're normally quite savage. Do be careful."

B was the other host, wasn't he? Naruto walked on, thinking about that. Maybe he could make friends with B, the way he had with Gaara.

Even that possibility couldn't distract him from the island itself for long, though. There were even _buildings_ on this turtle! About a hundred shinobi, from what he could see, were scattered around the narrow valley they were led down, going in and out of a clutch of weathered, moss grown stone buildings.

"A temple?" Sakura wondered, at his shoulder. "Look at the approaches." She pointed to a wide, paved way heading off into the crags.

"It was part of a temple complex, once," Motoi agreed. "It's well hidden, defensible, and close to the best concealment for the hosts."

"A fine choice," Kakashi-sensei murmured, not taking his nose out of his book as he paced along at Jiraiya's side. Naruto exchanged glances with Sakura and Sasuke, and they all rolled their eyes a little over their teacher's personal security blanket. He'd been using it a lot more, lately, and Naruto was starting to wonder if something was actually wrong.

Well, aside from Akatsuki and all that. _Besides_ that. Something personal, maybe. Mission stuff never bothered Kakashi-sensei this much.

Motoi showed them to their very own building. "We thought it wise to give the different nations separate quarters."

"Yes," Kakashi-sensei sighed, finally snapping his book closed. "I'm sure it will be just a joy to integrate this group." He raised his voice. "Everyone find rooms and settle in! Don't make trouble, and don't let anyone provoke you into making trouble. We're here to complete a mission. Remember it."

Naruto nodded to himself. Personal, definitely. As soon as he was doing mission stuff, Kakashi-sensei was just fine, if a little scary at times.

"Be quick about it, you three," Kakashi-sensei added as Naruto and his team filed past. "You and I will be going with Jiraiya-san to meet the other people in charge of this effort."

They threw their packs into an empty second floor room and, as they hurried down again to join Kakashi-sensei, Naruto heard Ino arguing with Kiba about who should take the rooms beside it, and Iruka-san's aggravated voice raised over both of them, telling them to knock it off. The fifth member of Ino's team, the lean pale guy, smiled wide and cheery as he stood aside for them on the stairs, apparently oblivious to Ino's temper; maybe he was used to it already.

"It's too bad Shikamaru and Chouji stayed in the village," Sakura muttered. "I mean, I'm glad for Ino that she was put in charge of the team from Intelligence, but she's a lot calmer when they're both around."

"She is?" Naruto asked, skeptical, dodging aside for Genma-san and the pack-loaded chuunin he was directing into the first floor rooms. He'd never noticed Ino being calm about anything, ever. Sakura's mouth quirked.

"Deep down."

They emerged into the misty chill of the valley again, and Kakashi nodded, pushing away from the wall. "Good, that's all of us. Let's go."

Naruto looked around some more as they trailed after Kakashi-sensei and Jiraiya across the cracked, grass-grown plaza toward the last building before that broad avenue and stairs out of the valley.

"There's always some friction when shinobi from different villages try to work together," Kakashi-sensei told them as they detoured around a woman with the Mist insignia and a man with Cloud's, up in each other's faces and arguing about the best way to keep watch for an attack from the air. "So I'll repeat this. Keep your tempers. Don't provoke anyone and don't let yourselves be provoked." For a moment, the cool, businesslike tone left his voice and he glanced over his shoulder at them with a rueful tilt to his eyebrow. "And when someone does loose his temper, I expect the other two to sit on him. Or her."

"Not a problem," Sasuke murmured.

"Hey, who said it would be me getting sat on?" Naruto bridled. As if Sasuke actually had any better of a temper than he did.

"Who said anything about that? I just said it wouldn't be a problem." Naruto growled at the bland look on Sasuke's face, and Kakashi sighed, and Jiraiya laughed, and they were all satisfyingly relaxed when they went into what Naruto guessed was the headquarters building around here. The low, square building turned out to be pretty much one big room with boringly blank, windowless walls and a huge oval table made of black stone. The camp chairs looked flimsy, circled around it.

There were a bunch of people already there. Checking forehead protectors and insignia, it looked like two from each of the five great nations plus Sound, Grass, and Valley. He waved cheerfully at Temari, who rolled her eyes in response even as a corner of her mouth twitched. Cloud had an extra three people, sitting a little back from the big table. One of them must be the host of the Eight-tails, he figured, wondering who it was. The huge guy? One of the two young shinobi, about his own age? That might be kind of cool.

"Hatake Kakashi, of the Leaf," Kakashi-san was introducing himself, distracting Naruto. "Jiraiya-sama, of the Leaf's Sannin. Our host, Uzumaki Naruto, and his teammates Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke. Pleased."

"We're all here, then," the dark, serious looking Cloud guy said, only to be interrupted when one of the two from Mist sat bolt upright and pointed at Sakura.

"Ah! Wall!"

Naruto was pretty sure everyone was blinking along with him at that one. Sakura sure was. "I beg your pardon?" she asked.

"At that Sound lab! I almost had that snake bastard and you stopped me!" He frowned. "Wait a minute, if you're _Leaf_..."

Sakura's mouth tightened, and Naruto edged closer to lean his shoulder against hers. "Orochimaru was a Leaf renegade," Sakura said quietly. "I was there to execute him."

The Mist guy crossed his arms with an exasperated huff that blew his silvery bangs out of his eyes. "Well then why did you stop me?"

Naruto could feel the shift as Sakura's spine straightened and she answered coolly, "Your chance of success was too low. You'd been captured, so he knew at least some of your abilities and weaknesses. He appeared inattentive, but that was almost always a ruse with him. There were ten other shinobi present who would support him. I calculated you had less than a fifty percent chance of success, whereas defending him at that point would considerably increase my later chances of killing him."

The Mist guy was a little wide-eyed by the time she was done, and the red-haired girl from Cloud whistled. "That's pretty cold," she said.

"It's good strategy," countered the sharp-eyed, dark-haired girl with the Rock insignia, with an approving look at Sakura.

The guy from Mist eyed Sakura thoughtfully. "So, did it work?"

Sakura twitched against his shoulder and Naruto was pretty sure she was forcing herself not to look at the two from Sound. The guy they'd met before, Tomita, he just looked serious, but the woman with him was definitely glaring. Sakura took a deep breath. "I drove my hand through his spine and saw the body burned," she said flatly. "Will you accept that as restitution for your capture?"

The first part of that had made Naruto suck in a quick breath, because Sakura wasn't the type to boast about her kills, but the second part made it all make sense. And the straight line of Tomita's shoulders softened as he looked up at Sakura.

"Huh." The Mist guy smiled, mouth full of sharp teeth. "Yeah, I guess I will."

Naruto snuck a sidelong look at Sakura, smiling. She nodded back just a little, relaxing against him. He and Sasuke shared a satisfied glance behind her. Yes, their teammate was just that awesome, and thoughtful, and caring. And scary, but Naruto thought it was probably okay if the other villages appreciated that part too.

"As I was saying," the Cloud leader said quite calmly, "perhaps introductions are in order. I'm Darui. This is my second in command, Samui," he gestured at the pale woman beside him, "and her team Karui and Omoi," that was the two younger Cloud nin, "who are particularly assigned as bodyguards to B, the host of the Eight-tails." The really big guy leaned back in his chair, which creaked.

Naruto tried to keep track of everyone as they went around the table, even though he kept getting distracted by watching B out of the corner of his eye. Tomita from Sound, he knew, and the glaring woman was Karin. The sharp girl from Rock was Kurotsuchi, and her father Kitsuchi was in charge of the Rock contingent. Haruto of Grass looked like the serious type, while his lieutenant, Souta, was lounging in his seat watching everyone lazily. Temari had come from Sand, and she'd brought Baki, the scary half-veil guy. Hidden Valley had sent a brother and sister from the Yasumori clan, Takuma and Yuzuki; Sasuke murmured that that clan was supposed to be really good with Wood techniques. The Mist guy who knew Sakura was Suigetsu, and the other one, who seemed to be really shy, was Choujuurou. They were both part of the Seven Swordsmen, apparently, and Naruto still wondered what was up with the filed teeth thing.

When everyone had been introduced, it was Darui, again, who said, "We need to choose someone to lead this mission. There are too many of us to try to command by consensus."

Silence fell while everyone at the table looked warily around at each other. Naruto nearly groaned out loud; it was going to take forever to get anywhere at this rate. Well, fine, if it wasn't obvious to anyone else...

He kicked the seat of Jiraiya's chair, providentially placed right in front of him. "Hey, ero-sennin. It had better be you hadn't it?"

Jiraiya looked around to glower fearsomely at him. "Naruto!" Naruto just crossed his arms and glared back.

"What? It's true!"

"Why him?" the red-haired Cloud girl, Karui, demanded.

"He's the oldest here, isn't he?" Naruto waved his hands; why wasn't this obvious? "And that means he's got the most experience, and he's survived all of it! And that's kind of the point of us being here, isn't it?"

After a quiet moment, Samui murmured, "He does make a good point."

"Sand knows things to the credit of Jiraiya," Temari allowed, though she added, "if he's being serious."

"And will he?" Kitsuchi wanted to know, leaning his stout elbows on the table. "Will he take on this kind of responsibility? Jiraiya of the Leaf is known to have left his village some time ago. He doesn't even wear Leaf's insignia any more."

Yuzuki stirred beside her brother. "Perhaps that would be well, in a situation like this. Perhaps we need someone whose first loyalty is not to a specific village. The River Country also knows of Jiraiya-san. He has never acted against Leaf's interests, but on his travels he has always been willing to lend his strength to the other villages and countries in time of trouble."

Jiraiya finally left off glowering at Naruto and sat back with a sigh. "Leaf is still my home village. But it's true that the dictates I try to follow are those of Mount Myouboku."

"Hatake-san," Choujuurou of the Mist said quietly, looking down at his folded hands on the table. "Will you vouch for the ability and dedication of Jiraiya-san?"

Kakashi-sensei was quiet for a long moment. "Jiraiya-san has both great knowledge and great wisdom," he said at last. "No matter how much he sometimes pretends he doesn't." Naruto and Sasuke caught each other's eye, and Naruto grinned at the look of disgruntled agreement on Sasuke's face. "If he accepts leadership of this mission, he will lead it well and, I think, impartially."

"Hey, wait a minute, why are you asking him?" Suigetsu wanted to know, poking Choujuurou in the ribs. He stopped and drew back, though, when Choujuurou looked up. He didn't look shy at all, now.

"Hatake-san was the one who sent Kisame-senpai's body and sword back to us," Choujuurou said, low. "Intact. The Mist will accept his judgment, in this." He gave Jiraiya a level look. "Will you accept it, Jiraiya-san?"

Jiraiya's mouth quirked up at one corner. "It's always the quiet ones," he murmured, and straightened. "If this command group can reach a unanimous decision, I will accept it."

Temari shrugged. "Mist and Leaf seem to agree. So does Sand." She raised a brow at the two from Valley, and Yuzuki nodded.

"Hatake Kakashi is Haruno-san's teacher," Tomita observed. "And we have cause to trust her judgment, as Mist has cause to trust Hatake-san's. Sound will accept her teacher's judgment as well."

Kitsuchi was watching Kakashi-sensei, who had gotten very still, looking amused. "You didn't really think no one had noticed, did you Kakashi? Your judgment was what carried more than one engagement in the Leaf's favor. Considering that, Rock agrees also."

"Good enough," Souta of the Grass drawled, and nudged his commander. "Haruto-san?"

"If my intelligence specialist agrees, then Grass accepts Jiraiya-san as well," Haruto said calmly, ignoring the annoyed look Souta gave him. Naruto figured Souta hadn't wanted anyone to know his specialty; Intelligence people tended to be like that, if Ino was anything to go by.

Everyone looked at Cloud. Darui considered Jiraiya for a long breath.

"Jiraiya-san," he finally said, "it's known that you have a close relationship with Leaf's host. Can you tell me with surety that you'll guard B as closely as you will Naruto?"

"I will," Jiraiya answered without hesitation, assurance ringing in every word, and Naruto smiled a little. Just like Kakashi-sensei had a particular tone he used when he was being serious about mission stuff, Jiraiya spoke like this sometimes and you just _believed_ him.

Darui nodded. "Then Cloud agrees, also. Jiraiya will command this mission."

"If you can give me a similar assurance," Jiraiya shot back immediately, "I would like you to act as second in command, Darui-kun."

Darui smiled just a little at that, and gave Naruto a long look. "Yes," he finally agreed. "I will defend Naruto of the Leaf as if he were our own."

"All right, then." Jiraiya glanced over at Kakashi-sensei. "Kakashi, you're in charge of the Leaf contingent. Tell Genma he's your second." Kakashi nodded silently and Jiraiya turned back to the rest of them. "If I'm to plan well for this mission, I need to know the abilities of the people you've brought."

Naruto tried to pay attention, but it was hard to be all that interested in lists. His attention kept wandering to the Cloud host, B. Sakura had gotten all the gossip available on Cloud's host from Intelligence, before they left, and she said he was supposed to be one of the few hosts who completely controlled the power of the beast sealed inside him. Naruto had to wonder what that would be like.

"...well supplied with sensors and scouts, then," Jiraiya was saying, when Naruto tuned in again, hands folded loosely under his chin as he thought. "I'll want everyone's input on how to best place the rest of our people for defense, if we're discovered. Before that, though, Motoi mentioned that there was a place on this island where the hosts could be completely undetected?"

B finally spoke up. "The Tailed Beast temple. Chakra doesn't pass its walls, either in or out."

"That may be very useful for keeping the two of you from Akatsuki, if they find the island in the first place," Jiraiya said approvingly. "If they can't sense you at all, they may be convinced this encampment is a decoy." Naruto sat up straight at that.

"Hey, hey, wait a minute," he protested. "You can't just stuff us in a temple if there's trouble! I mean, I'm not just going to hide while everyone else is fighting!"

"You're their target," Jiraiya told him inflexibly, so level and serious that Naruto knew, with a sinking feeling, he really meant it. "And we will not permit them to take you. If that means hiding, you'll do it."

"But—!"

Sakura laid a hand on his shoulder. "Naruto," she said gently. "I know you're worried. You want the people you care for to be safe, even if you have to put yourself in danger to make sure of that, right?"

He crossed his arms, vindicated, and nodded firmly. "Yeah!" At least _someone_ understood.

And then he yelped as Sakura grabbed the front of his shirt in her fist and dragged him up nose to nose with her. "Then what the hell makes you think _we_ feel any differently?!" she yelled.

Naruto blinked at her, ears ringing. "Oh. Um." He rubbed the back of his head, sheepish; he hadn't quite thought of it like that. "Right." He glanced around the table, face getting a little hot. Darui-san was looking amused, Temari wryly approving, and Tomita looked downright nostalgic. Sakura sniffed and dropped him back into his seat. She didn't quite dust her hands, but Naruto thought she might as well have. He took a breath and rallied. "But! Itachi is gone, so whoever comes can't just put that eye thing on us. They have to beat us first, right? So, so!" Naruto just about bounced; this was important. "So if you guys are defeated because we weren't there to fight with you, we'll have a worse chance of winning by ourselves!" He folded his arms again. "So we totally should fight with everyone else."

"And what if it's Madara himself who comes after you?" Jiraiya asked sharply.

Naruto scowled, but he supposed that was a point. "If it's Madara, I'll hide," he agreed. "But if it's anyone else, I'll fight too!"

Jiraiya opened his mouth and closed it again. "Hm."

B stirred. "You really going to be that much good to the fight?" he asked, leaning his creaking chair back on two legs. "How much of the Nine-tail's chakra can you draw, anyway?"

Naruto lifted his chin. "Enough to give a jounin a complete chakra transfusion," he said challengingly. A soft murmur of surprise rustled around the table and he sat back, satisfied.

B snorted. "That's nothing compared to what the Nine-tails has on tap."

Naruto bristled. "Fine, then! Show me!" B cocked his head and Naruto jumped up, pointing at him. "You're supposed to be able to access all of the Eight-tails. So show me how! And I'll do it! Because I'm not leaving my friends to fight alone!" He jammed his fists on his hips, glaring. "The fox already agreed to pay me rent. I bet I can get him to do this too!"

B's chair wobbled on two legs for a moment and his brows vanished under his forehead protector. " _Rent_?" After a long moment, he laughed. "You're a firecracker. I kind of like that. All right, kid; let's see if you can do it."

"Well," Jiraiya said dryly, "that much seems to have been decided. Have fun. Let us know how it's going."

Naruto grinned at him and gave him Gai-san's thumbs up sign, which made Sasuke groan faintly and Kakashi-sensei twitch. "You bet!"

B stretched up out of his chair, just as huge as he looked sitting down, and clapped his hands on Omoi's and Karui's shoulders. "Come on, you two. You can keep an eye on us." Sakura and Sasuke promptly stood too, at Naruto's back.

Karui gave them all a smirk. "You'll never be able to do it."

"Just watch me," Naruto told her, and strode out of the building after B.

* * *

"These are the Falls of Truth," B said over the low thunder of falling water that filled the little clearing. "The temple is behind it. To reach the temple, though, you have to face yourself first."

Naruto puzzled at that for a moment and finally tilted his head at B and just asked, "Huh?"

"Sit there," B pointed to a flat stone at the foot of the falls, "and meditate on the water. You'll have to pass whatever appears out of the falls, to get to the temple."

Was this where some of the giant animals would come in? Naruto shrugged. "Okay then." He took a step toward the river, focusing his chakra for water walking, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

"Naruto," Sasuke said quietly, "while you're doing this... remember us. Okay?"

Naruto blinked. "Well of course I'll remember you. You're right here."

Sasuke gave him an exasperated look. "That wasn't what I meant. It's... look, just..." he finally huffed out a breath, pulled Naruto around, and kissed him.

Naruto made a startled sound, but this... this was one of the special kisses, the ones that were slow and coaxing and like Naruto was the only thing Sasuke was thinking of in the whole world. So Naruto mentally tossed over his shoulder all the questions about why _now_ and leaned into it. It made him feel like _he_ was special when Sasuke kissed him like this, and Sakura was warm against his back, arms wrapped around them both. Sakura would protect them from everything; she always did.

"Don't get too knotted up inside your own head, okay?" Sasuke said softly, when he finally drew back. "Remember this."

"Okay," Naruto agreed, husky.

Both Karui and Omoi had their brows raised when Sakura and Sasuke let him go, but B was wearing a tilted little smile. "Good guess," he told Sasuke, and added to Naruto, "Well, go on, then."

Naruto thought maybe he could have walked on water without any chakra at all, after that. But staring at the falls was boring. He shifted on the rock and sighed and stared some more.

And... was there a shadow in the water? He swore he could see his reflection, only the water had to be too rough for that...

The reflection solidified and himself stepped out of the waterfall.

It was definitely himself. Himself with the still, distant look on his face that Naruto never, ever, ever showed anyone else. What good would it do, after all, for anyone to know when he felt that way? That face was wet from the waterfall. Wait, no...

Wet with tears, running down from those dark, empty eyes without stopping.

"They don't think you exist," himself said quietly. "They look at you and don't see you. Only the Nine-tails. You don't exist at all."

The words were like a fist against a broken bone. "That's not true!" Naruto burst out.

"Sometimes they see the Fourth's son, now," his own voice said, his own face, looking straight at him. "But who's that? You never knew him, except that he's the one who chose this life for you. Does that really make his son something good? No. Just another empty form."

"But I'm not," Naruto wavered, remembering the times he'd wondered how his dad could do this to his own son, and grabbed reflexively at his oldest shield. "I'm not! And it doesn't matter! I'm going to be a hero!"

"Only until you fail," himself said, soft and flat. "Like you did with Gaara. Too late. Not good enough. Then they'll all say it's no surprise, won't they? Because you're nothing, after all."

Naruto wrapped his arms around him, suddenly cold in the blowing droplets from the falls. People would say that, yes. He could hear them, like he'd heard them for eighteen years, cold words spit at his back, and even his face, whenever he tried to succeed. They piled up like rocks on his shoulders until he was hunched down under the weight.

"How will you live, then?" himself asked. "Without anyone who really sees you at all. Wouldn't it be better not to? The Nine-tails will die too, that way. Akatsuki won't get it. There will be time for someone who actually chooses this to step up to be a host. Isn't that what your father should have done?" He took a step closer. "And if you kill the fox that way, maybe then they'll finally say you were a hero."

"I won't!" Naruto yelled, putting his hands over his ears. His own eyes were burning, now. "I won't, I won't let them win! I'm better than that! I am!"

"Who says so?" himself asked, so disinterested Naruto could tell he thought it was impossible.

"Sakura says," he shot back, "and..." He stopped and blinked. "And... Sasuke. Sasuke said..."

 _Don't get too knotted up inside your own head, okay?_

"And, and Shikamaru said," Naruto whispered, remembering.

 _We'll keep ours safe._

"And Hinata," Naruto said softly. "And Kiba, and Chouji..."

 _Naruto-kun..._

 _Naruto!_

 _Hey, Naruto..._

He remembered faces smiling at him. "And Gaara said I'd helped." He felt again the little roughness of sand, swirling around his hand and lifting it to meet Gaara's and clasp hands good-bye like friends. "And that ero-sennin said it would help if I fought beside everyone. Even though he didn't want to!"

"Are they really telling the truth, though?" himself wanted to know. He was very close now, and the emptiness in his eyes was everything that had terrified Naruto when he woke up alone at night for years and years. But...

"Sasuke and Sakura love me," he said, and _knew_ it was true. And in knowing, himself got a little see-through for a moment. Naruto took a deep breath. He knew what this was, now. "All that... that's from the past. It's not now. Now is different." He could feel the warmth of Sakura's arms around him, of Sasuke's mouth on his, and he smiled even if it was wobbly, holding tight to them. "Now is different."

"How do you know for sure? What if it's just a lie? What if it goes away?" himself whispered, and Naruto had to laugh out loud even though his own eyes were wet with that fear, too.

"I know because of this," he said, husky, and reached out to wrap his arms around himself, just like Sakura had for him. And kissed himself, gentle and careful, the way Sasuke did for him.

Everything blurred through the water on his lashes, and when he blinked them clear he was looking at the waterfall and himself was gone. He looked around hastily, and found Sasuke and Sakura on the river shore along with B and Karui and Omoi. Naruto scrubbed a sleeve over his face and sucked in a deep breath and stood up. He felt... light.

Also a little dizzy, and he wobbled as he stepped back off the water and onto land.

B put a hand on his shoulder to steady him, looking down at him with a cocked brow. "So?"

"Well... I'm pretty sure I dealt with what I found, yeah." Naruto's smile got a little crooked for a second, and B's matched it. Yeah, B was a host too, after all; he probably knew.

"Good. That was the easy part."

Naruto thought about that. He guessed he could believe it; the falls had hurt some, but he'd already _known_ all that stuff wasn't true any more. He'd just needed to, well, to tell himself.

Still...

"Can we get something to eat first, then?" he asked.

He didn't know why everyone seemed to find that so funny. It was a perfectly natural question.

* * *

The next morning, after a good breakfast, the six of them went back to the temple, all the way inside this time. It felt really weird, not being able to sense anyone's chakra but theirs. The wall carvings were kind of cool, though.

"All right," B told him, once they were inside the inner building, arms crossed. "You've talked to the Nine-tails before, right? So you need to do that again. The more you talk, the more reasonable he'll get. Probably."

"Probably?" Sakura asked, wary.

"Well." B scratched his head. "See, thing is, the tailed beasts don't normally have much in the way of human thought. Or speech. They get that from us, the hosts. The more we talk, the more of our kind of sensible the beasts get. But Eight-tails, he says that Nine-tails is kind of an ornery bastard all the time, so he might stay pissed off longer."

"Huh." Naruto thought about that. It made sense. The Nine-tails _did_ seem to spend most of his time really pissed off. "So I'll just keep talking until he settles down. I can do that. Um." He glanced around at them and cleared his throat. "So. Um."

"Naruto," Sasuke asked, eyeing him suspiciously, "do you actually know how to do this?"

"Of course I do!" Naruto drew himself up, indignant. And then deflated again. "Except, um. The times I've done it before I've kind of been about to die."

Sasuke buried his face in his hands with a groan. "I knew it."

B snorted a laugh. "You're something else, kid."

"There is another time you're close, though," Sakura said slowly. "When you're really upset about one of us. When someone you care about is in danger. That's when the Nine-tails' chakra gets visible and..." she hesitated and finished, eyes narrow, "when you don't seem to hear words any more. The Nine-tails must be really close, then."

"So if I think about how much I need this, to protect all of you," Naruto started, perking up. He could totally do that, and it would be a lot easier than getting one of them to throw him off the falls for something.

"That's a dangerous way to do it," B rumbled. "It might just send you out of control."

Abruptly, Sasuke swung around, back to all of them.

"Sasuke?" Naruto asked, worried, reaching out a hand to him.

"If it's necessary," Sasuke said to the floor, tight and stifled, "I can get you back. But that will probably piss the fox off twice as much, so try not to need it, okay?"

"O...kay?" Naruto hazarded, not sure exactly what was going on behind that except that something sure was.

B stirred, where he was leaning against the stone steps of the little inner pyramid. "Uchiha," he said, like the answer to a question. Sasuke twitched, and Naruto scowled at B. "The records from the founding say Madara was the first one to bind the Nine-tails—and not by sealing it."

"I'm not him," Sasuke said, flat and hard. "But a powerful Sharingan can control the beasts, especially if a host isn't helping them resist."

"But the fox would be even more pissed off to be reminded," Naruto worked it out. "Yeah, I guess I'd be pissed off too." He came and jostled Sasuke gently. "Don't worry. I won't let him get loose." So his teammate wouldn't have to do anything like what Madara did.

Sasuke huffed a soft laugh at that, finally looking around. "Yeah. If you're going to be stubborn about it, I won't worry. You're more pig-headed than an elemental demon fox any day."

"Of course I am." Naruto smiled, satisfied, and climbed up the stairs briskly to sit on the platform at the top of them. "Okay, here I go."

He closed his eyes and thought about the village. About Tsunade-baachan and the ero-sennin. About Kakashi-sensei and Iruka-san. About his year-mates, sitting around a grill table and fighting over yakiniku and bragging about their latest missions. About the hospital, and the way the other medics and the doctors smiled when he came in for a shift. About the kid whose hand he'd held through a tooth extraction, and the man whose bone he'd set and bonded because he had to take a mission in a week to pay for a new baby on the way, and the screaming panic inside him when he'd attended the birth and had to stop a hemorrhage, and how everyone in the room had cried when they knew the mother and baby would both pull through.

He thought about Sasuke and Sakura.

He thought about Akatsuki. About Gaara's lifeless body and what it had cost to bring him home again. About what Akatsuki would do to everyone between him and them, if he didn't find the power he needed to stop them.

He opened his eyes and glared at the Nine-tail's cage. "Hey! Fox! I need to talk to you!"

An earth-shaking growl rumbled through the hall he was standing in, vibrating the water underfoot. "So, it's you again, brat. What do you want this time?"

"I need your power!" And then he remembered that he was supposed to be talking, and probably cooperating, and coughed. "Um. Please."

The fox stepped forward out of the dark and curled a lip up, showing one massive fang. "You're in no danger. Why should I?"

"Shows what you know," Naruto muttered. "Look, if I can't fight with all your power, then Akatsuki is probably going to get us in the end, and you'll be stuck with Madara and whatever he's—"

"Madara!" The fox reared up behind his bars, roaring so loud the walls vibrated and Naruto's ears hurt. "Show me where he is, and this time I'll devour him!"

Naruto folded his arms and snorted. "And he'll just do that eye thing on you, and you'll be stuck again."

A whole lot of really big teeth were bared right at him as the fox growled.

"But Sasuke said that a host can help you resist that," Naruto offered, determined not to edge backwards.

Nine-tails stopped growling, ears cocked. "Just so you can keep me bound to your own purposes instead," he said suspiciously. "Like three generations of your damn village before you." He spat with disgust, which was actually kind of impressive to see, coming from something that size.

Naruto opened his mouth and slowly closed it again, thinking. "I don't really know what my purposes are supposed to be," he said at last. "I mean, I know what _I_ want. I want to protect the people who are important to me. And I want the village to acknowledge me, but, um," he smiled, remembering the falls, "people kind of do that already. So it's mostly just protecting. And, since you're here, and it's kind of about you this time, yeah I want your help. But usually? Hell, I can protect people with my own strength." He looked up at the huge, red eyes above him. "If there's something more I'm supposed to be doing with you, no one ever told me." He shrugged, jamming his hands in his pockets. "So screw that."

The fox blinked at him.

Naruto scratched his nose thoughtfully. "Do you have, um, 'purposes'?" he asked. "I mean... there must be things you want to do, too." He'd never really thought about that before. Wow, it must kind of suck to be stuck inside someone else and not be able to do what you needed to.

Honestly, no wonder the fox was pissed off.

"I destroy corruption," the Nine-tails said after a long, silent moment. "That's the nature of my being, the nature of all the tailed beasts. I am a spirit of the pure world, and I burn away what becomes twisted."

"Corruption?" Naruto scrunched up his mouth, trying to puzzle that out. He really doubted the fox meant garbage heaps, or at least if it did he was going to laugh really hard. Maybe less literal. Like gambling and stuff? Only maybe bigger and more serious... "Oh!" His eyes opened wide and he snapped his fingers, pleased with his insight. "Like Madara!"

The fox snarled like stone tearing apart. Naruto took that for a yes.

"Well, that's easy, then! We can do that."

"We can _what_?" the Nine-tails asked, as if it really hadn't understood a word he'd said. Naruto came closer to the bars, looking up at him seriously.

"I mean it. Taking out the people like Madara, who are hurting everyone and... I guess you'd say corrupting the world. I'm good with that." He cocked his head. "It's what I came here to ask for help with!"

The fox actually drew back from the bars. "You say that now, because he attacks you. But if it were someone in your own village, you'd think different. Even sealed away, I could smell the corruption of that creature Orochimaru. But did that damn woman listen to me? Ha!"

"I would have listened," Naruto pointed out. "I mean, it was my own teammate, Sakura, who killed Orochimaru."

The fox settled back on his haunches, and his growl turned approving. "The girl you're so foolish for? A suitable end. She's touched by the chakra of the world herself, now."

"I'd have been a lot happier if you'd spoken up and we could have taken Orochimaru out ourselves," Naruto grumbled, crossing his arms. "That was a really hard mission for Sakura; it really hurt her!"

The fox's tails flicked out like shrugging, but its eyes were fixed on him. "Do you truly think you can do this? Be the hands and vessel of a great spirit? Burn out the world's rot?"

"I'm not saying I'm going to just let you rampage off whenever the hell you feel like it," Naruto snapped. "You don't get it all your own way! You're here and you have your own thing, and I'll help with that whenever we can, but I'm here too! If I help you, you have to help me. Not to destroy—to protect!"

The fox curled up his lip to show his fang again, disdainful. "Mouthy brat, aren't you?"

"So maybe I get it from you," Naruto grumbled back. He wasn't sure this talking thing was really going to work.

But that, of all the things he'd said, made the fox throw up its head and laugh like the rush and leap of a fire. "You claim you're kin to me? Bargain like it, then!" he declared, and in one stride he was right up at the bars, nose to enormous nose with Naruto. "You will let me watch the world through you. You will hear and heed when I tell you that there is corruption that must be destroyed. I will lend you all my power to do that. And if you do those things, I will also lend it for the protection of your 'important people'."

Naruto looked the Nine-tails in the eyes. Or eye, since he could really only meet one at a time, this close. "I'll let you watch," he agreed. "And I'll help with the corruption thing as long as we can do it without destroying anything _else_." He ignored the low growl at that. "And you can get words and thoughts from me, so you can understand why that's important."

The fox blinked and drew back a bit. "Hmph," he said at last, and the force of that snort plastered Naruto's clothes against him for a moment. "I suppose that will do for now. And," he added, as he faded back into the darkness past the bars, "we'll see who influences who."

"Stubborn damn fox," Naruto grumbled and opened his eyes on the temple again. His butt was cold from sitting on stone; he must have been 'gone' a while, this time. Five pairs of eyes were fixed on him, and he grinned back. "He agreed."

Sasuke and Sakura both relaxed, which made him notice how tense they'd been, and he rubbed the back of his head and gave them an apologetic look.

"Well, let's see it, then," B told him, waving him down off the steps.

"Sure thing!" Naruto bounced up, excited by the idea of getting to spar with this kind of stuff. He suddenly wobbled with his foot on the first step, though. His eyes widened. "Hey!"

"Naruto?" Sakura and Sasuke were up the steps beside him in a flash, Sasuke's eyes red and Sakura's hands hovering in the first seal of her activation.

Naruto barely noticed, busy glowering at thin air. "The 'damn woman' who didn't listen... He was talking about my _mom_! That damn fox was insulting my _mom_!" He brandished a fist in the air, yelling at the flicker of fire he could feel in the back of his head. "Don't you say one bad word about my mom, damn it!"

A faint chuckle threaded through the temple, or maybe it was just his mind, and for half a breath a handful of tails brushed forward around him sending Sakura and Sasuke jumping back. Naruto crossed his arms and scowled ferociously. He was totally not letting the fox off the hook for this one, no matter how much power or how many tails it waved at him.

"Well," B broke the silence in the temple. "This'll be interesting."

* * *

In the inner space where the demon fox curled behind his bars, the seal tag closing those gates shifted ever so slightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry folks, there will be no hip-hop rhymes for B here. I suck at rhyming, and not in an in-character sort of way. My rationale is that, in this universe, B only rhymes at opponents in battle or with people he really likes and trusts, and a dicey international mission doesn't fit either yet. As for the Nine-tails, the second half painted him as a lot more vicious and toxic than the first half, and I like the first half better; he even seems to have a bit of a soft spot for Naruto in the first half, insofar as an arrogant, pissed off elemental demon can. So I'm sticking with that characterization.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto is figuring out how to work with the Nine-tails, but Akatsuki is getting bolder. Shikamaru brings them word of the attack on Fire Country and when the new Akatsuki team finds the Island Turtle Jiraiya is the next to pay for facing them. Drama, Action, Angst.

Naruto bounced on his toes in the middle of the rocky clearing B had said he could practice in without tripping over the Island's animals. He was having So. Much. Fun.

 _Grinning idiot,_ the fox muttered in the back of his head. Naruto ignored that; Nine-tails spent a lot of time saying things like that to him lately.

"Hey, hey, ero-sennin," he grinned. "I bet I can do that move you told me not to do, now."

"Naruto," Jiraiya said warningly, starting to get up from his spot under a tree where he had agreed to watch over Naruto's training when Kakashi-sensei insisted he needed a break. And a drink. But Naruto was sure of this one.

He grabbed two clones into being and held out a hand for the Rasengan and concentrated. This was the hard part. As he fed in chakra, one of the clones transformed it to the Wind nature and the other... he grinned wider.

 _Are you crazy, you idiot?_ the fox barked, and Naruto felt the hasty rush of the Nine-tails' power to his arm, shielding him from his own creation.

 _This will work,_ he said back, silently the way he'd learned to after a couple of caustic comments from the Nine-tails about babbling Leaf brats.

 _Only because I'm using half of my power to keep your fool arm in once piece!_ The fox actually yelped as Naruto pulled a little more power to hold the re-shaped Rasengan's form. _There's nothing left for anything else if you still want to power that damn thing. You're completely vulnerable!_

"That," Naruto said out loud, through his teeth, "is what a team is for!" He turned and hurled the Rasenshuriken at the peak of the crag behind him. It held form and struck in an explosion of pulverized rock, and he punched the air in triumph. "Yes!"

"What," Jiraiya demanded, frozen halfway to his feet and staring at Naruto narrowly, "did you do?"

Naruto grinned some more. "Well, see, if Nine-tails _gives_ me his chakra, I get a lot more than I do just through the seal normally. So there's enough to protect my arm and still form a Wind Rasengan into a throwing shape!"

Jiraiya frowned. "That has to take a great deal of chakra to accomplish."

"That's what he said too," Naruto agreed. "He says there isn't any left over. But, like I told him, that's what a team is for. So I can still use that if I have to."

Jiraiya sighed, and rubbed his forehead. "Maybe it was a mistake to let Kakashi have the three of you for so long," he muttered.

Naruto smiled up at him. "Nah, it was just right. Because we're going to need our teamwork now, aren't we?"

Jiraiya stood the rest of the way, only to lean back against the tree with a thump. "Not unlikely." His mouth quirked. "You really do remind me a lot of her, sometimes." When Naruto blinked he clarified, "Tsunade. Best healer you ever saw, and absolutely terrifying in the field. The things she would come up with! There was this one time, up at the border of River and Sky. We'd retreated so she could take care of my broken ribs and lung, and a flanking group of Rain-nin just about tripped over us." He took a long drink. "Idiot woman wouldn't let go of me since she was in the middle of healing, so she _electrified_ herself. Anyone who touched her got their neural signals scrambled like an egg, and she actually magnetized her damn knife with the current, so it drew all the shuriken and kunai." He sighed. "Of course, that strained even her control and reserves, and she nearly passed out when she finished with me. Try not to imitate that part."

Naruto nodded, wide-eyed. She'd never told him _that_ story.

Jiraiya clapped Naruto's shoulder in passing as he turned them both back toward the encampment, "You're right, used with a team to support you it should work. I think, since it's your idea, you should be the one to explain it to Sakura and Sasuke."

Naruto swallowed hard. "Oh."

* * *

Perfectly concealed in the shifting shadows of the trees, the one who was currently called Sai watched them go and looked back thoughtfully at the broken rubble Naruto's strike had left. That had been a remarkably powerful attack. He could understand why Danzou-sama had assigned him to keep watch on the Nine-tails and its vessel.

Not that he really needed to understand, of course.

With a flicker, the shadows were empty again.

* * *

Another day, another training session. This time, Sakura had insisted very firmly that she and Sasuke were coming along. If he was going to need them to cover him, they would all practice together.

By the time she got to that part, Naruto's ears had been ringing hard enough from the _rest_ of her reaction that he'd agreed meekly. Of course, that meant that the fox spent a lot of his time growling sidelong at Sasuke. Naruto couldn't decide whether that was better or worse than having the fox telling him off for sloppy technique.

Sakura flashed over the rocks, playing opponent for this round, nearly glowing the the power of her seal, and her fist punched right through Naruto's half-formed Rasengan. He yelped as Sasuke dove in front of him, driving Sakura back for an instant with a burst of flame.

"Where's your concentration today?" Sasuke demanded, rounding on him. "That was pathetic."

The fox actually whined.

Naruto sighed. "Nine-tails keeps glaring at you; it's distracting. Though it is kind of funny when you both get pissy about my technique and he gets all _pained_ about having to agree with an Uchiha," he added reflectively.

 _Mouthy brat,_ the fox snapped.

"What?" Naruto asked, looking aside so the other two would know who he was talking to. "It's totally true."

Sasuke sighed. "Would it help if I swore to him that I would never try to bind him unless it was to save you?"

 _No,_ the Nine-tails answered sharply. _That was how I wound up sealed in the first place. Damn humans._

"I think that would just mean he growls at you because you're like Mito-san, instead of because you're like Madara," Naruto relayed, mouth quirking. "He just likes throwing tantrums."

 _BRAT!_ the fox howled, and Naruto snickered.

"I'm glad to see the two of you are getting along so well," Sasuke said, a bit dryly. "If it's distracting you, though, we'd better work on it some more. I don't want to think about what he'll be saying if we ever do come up against Madara."

"Bet Naruto would pick up some new names to call his opponents," Sakura put in, obviously amused by the whole thing. "Come on, then. One more time. Sasuke's turn to attack." She tugged up her gloves and set herself beside Naruto.

Naruto took a deep breath and formed a new Wind Rasengan, readying himself to hold it against Sasuke's Fire techniques. He was getting faster at forming them, no question, but pushing in enough of the Nine-tails' chakra without bursting the sphere—that was the trick.

The sun slanted down the high blue sky as they worked, one Rasengan after another holding or bursting. It was hours before both Sasuke and the fox were grudgingly satisfied. Naruto collapsed to sprawl out on the thin turf. "I don't know why you don't like him better," he panted at the fox. "You think way too alike."

"Well no wonder you tease the Nine-tails so much, then," Sakura laughed, sitting next to him a lot more gracefully. She had a lot more endurance these days, and activated and deactivated her seal like breathing. Naruto was kind of envious; he wished he could do it that easily with the Nine-tails' chakra.

"He'd better understand that it's just teasing," Sasuke muttered darkly, handing the water bottle over to Naruto. Naruto smiled up at him, with the warm feeling in his chest that Sasuke's little moments of protectiveness always gave him. And maybe the fox was worn out by all his growling or something, because he seemed to settle, too.

They rested in quiet for a while, but it wasn't long before Sakura cocked her head. "Listen. Is someone coming?"

Sure enough, Iruka-san appeared through the trees, from the direction of the encampment. "There's a messenger from Konoha coming!" he called to them, waving. "Do you want to be there to see who it is?"

Naruto bounced up to his feet at that. "Yeah!" They had messenger birds pretty regularly, but they hadn't had a person since they all got to the island and it started moving. Personally, he was dying for some gossip from home.

Most of the Leaf contingent was gathered at the shore to see who'd come, and almost as many people from the other nations. Naruto supposed this was a pretty boring assignment, so far, for people who weren't figuring out to how fight with a crotchety old fox growling in their ears.

The blue-sailed boat running up the island's flank was one of the Lightning Country's, and Naruto could see the sailors hustling around the deck already but he couldn't see anyone he knew with them. He managed not to sigh, but he did slump a little, only to be nudged by Sasuke.

"The passengers will stay out of the way until landing," Sasuke said quietly. "I learned that fast, traveling with Jiraiya."

Naruto perked up again. "Oh." He grinned a little and leaned against Sasuke's shoulder in silent thanks.

Sure enough, as the boat eased up against the rocky inlet, more heads appeared and Ino squealed. "Shikamaru! It's Shikamaru and Chouji!"

Watching her light up, Naruto wondered if Sakura was really right, and Ino would be easier to deal with now her real team was here. He sure hoped so. He bet her Intelligence team hoped so too. Everyone crowded down toward the boat as Shikamaru and Chouji climbed up to the shore.

"Shikamaru?" Ino whispered, stopping short. Naruto's head snapped up and around to stare at her. She sounded _afraid_.

Abruptly, Ino was elbowing ruthlessly through the small crowd, shoving other ninja out of her path with no regard for rank. She caught Shikamaru's shoulders. "What is it? What happened?"

Everyone quieted at that, and Shikamaru's voice was clear in the silence, though he didn't raise it.

"Two of Akatsuki were in the Fire Country. They attacked the Fire Temple before we found them. Asuma-san..." Shikamaru closed his eyes. "Asuma-san was killed."

Ino made a small, sharp sound, biting her lip hard enough to turn it white.

"Raidou-san's team joined us," Shikamaru went on steadily. "We picked up Mitarashi-san's team when we reported in, and Hyuuga Tokuma located the Akatsuki pair when they came back toward the village again. That time, we stopped them."

"Jiraiya-san should hear about this," Kakashi-sensei said quietly, coming to rest a hand on Shikamaru's shoulder. Shikamaru just nodded and caught Ino's hand when she started to protest.

"I'll be there after I've reported." Their eyes held for a long moment, and Ino nodded like he'd said something more.

"C'mon, Chouji," she said briskly. "I'll get you guys settled in the Leaf building."

The crowd broke up and followed slowly in Kakashi-sensei and Shikamaru's wake back toward the encampment. Naruto's team closed up around Ino and Chouji, along with Kiba, Hinata, and Shino, silent support for their yearmates.

"Shikamaru's still really torn up," Chouji was saying as they climbed. "He almost scared me, when he was setting up the ambush for Hidan, the one who killed Asuma-sensei. But, you know, I think what really hurts is that he can't do more for Kurenai-san."

Ino winced. "Fuck. Is she...?"

"She's pretty broken up," Chouji said softly, looking down at the path.

"Kurenai-sensei," Hinata whispered, hand pressed against her lips.

"What?" Naruto asked her, worried by all this cryptic concern. "Is there something wrong with Kurenai-san?"

"Kurenai-sensei is going to have a child," she said softly. "By Asuma-san."

Naruto's eyes widened. "Oh shit." Unwanted information cascaded through his brain, about pregnancy and stress and all the _really bad things_ that a shinobi's usual coping methods could do to a developing baby. "She's got a good doctor, right?" he asked anxiously. "I mean, she's got someone who knows what they're doing, right? They're not going to let her drink too much or spar till she falls down or anything stupid like usual, right?"

All seven of them stared at him for a blank moment before Sakura and then Ino started laughing, and Kiba rolled his eyes. "Who was it decided Naruto should be a medic, again?" he asked thin air. "I think you mean 'stupid like you'."

Naruto planted his fists on his hips and glared. "I'm serious! There are, like, _lectures_ on all the crazy stuff shinobi do and how you have to remind them not to if they're pregnant!"

"Kurenai-sensei is more sensible than that," Shino remarked.

"And I asked Neji-niisan to look after her, when we had to leave," Hinata added, reassuring.

"Well all right, then." Naruto tried to put hospital horror stories out of his mind while they found a room for Chouji and Shikamaru, and settled down to wait for Shikamaru to return.

It didn't take long. Ino pulled him down onto the bedroll between her and Chouji almost before he was all the way through the door, and Naruto couldn't say she was wrong. Shikamaru looked older, today. Harder and darker. Naruto felt the Nine-tails stir inside him.

"Chouji and I will be part of Raidou-san's team, for now," Shikamaru said quietly. "We'll keep looking for Akatsuki's bases in Fire Country." He looked up at Naruto and there was fire in those dark eyes, the kind of fire Naruto was a lot more used to seeing in Sasuke's. "They won't get past us."

Naruto clenched a fist, frustrated. "We should stop hiding, me and B. They'll come to us, if we stop hiding, and then this wouldn't have happened!"

For a moment Shikamaru seemed to waver, and then he closed his eyes with a sigh. "Yes, it probably would," he said, low. "Unless we'd had information beforehand about what those zombie freaks could do. The one who killed Asuma-san couldn't die. I mean really couldn't die. And his ritual meant every wound to him happened to his opponent too."

Sakura pressed a hand to her mouth. "Shit," she hissed though it.

A corner of Shikamaru's mouth twitched up in a grim not-smile. "Yeah. I didn't see it fast enough."

Ino smacked him on the shoulder, hard. "You stop that! It wasn't your fault!" She paused and glanced over at Naruto. "It wasn't anyone's fault but Akatsuki's," she finished, soft and steady. "So you shut up too, Naruto. We're not going to hang you out for bait."

"Asuma-san," Hinata whispered, voice shaky, and leaned into Kiba when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. More firmly she repeated, "Asuma-san's memory does honor to his clan. We shouldn't... shouldn't take that away."

Naruto scrunched up his face, trying to work that out. "Huh?" he finally asked.

A breath of a laugh escaped Shikamaru, though he still looked down at his hands. "Yeah. Even if we're not part of a noble clan... we're still shinobi of the Leaf." He looked up at last. "We took down two of Akatsuki and only lost two lives. We did that without risking them getting their hands on our host. We did it to protect our village and country—the lives in our care." He took a slow, trembling breath. "Including our village's children. Asuma-san died to keep those things safe—not happily, but willingly." He smiled, a little crookedly, at Naruto. "You need to let other people do that too, you know; it's not just you."

Naruto opened his mouth to protest, and closed it again slowly. If Asuma-san had felt the same way he did, about protecting precious things... he looked down, swallowing against the ball of sadness and pride swirling inside him like one of his own Rasengan. "Yeah," he said, husky. "That's... that's something that should be honored. You're right, Hinata."

"It will be," Sasuke said, resting a hand on Naruto's shoulder. "Like the others who have gone before."

Hinata nodded against Kiba's shoulder. "He left this in our hands. Now it's our turn," she said softly.

That hot spark of fury flickered in Shikamaru's eyes again for a moment. "Yes. It is."

"When we get back," Chouji spoke up firmly, laying one big hand on Shikamaru's back, and Shikamaru smiled at him, rueful and sidelong.

"Yeah, I hear you." He stretched his arms up and let out a breath and looked a little more his usual self as he asked Ino, "So, how's your Intelligence team here doing?"

"Oh my _god_ , never speak of them to me, ever!" Ino waved her hands wildly. "Sato and Tanaka broke up right before we started this mission, and they'll barely even speak to each other unless there's actually a blade coming at one of them. And _then_ there's Sai, who makes Naruto look well-socialized!"

Kiba blinked. "Wow." Naruto growled and Shino quietly drew Hinata against his own side, clearing the way for Naruto to jump on Kiba and scuffle.

Ino pointed at them. "That! He's even worse than that!"

Everyone was laughing a little by the time Naruto finished knuckling Kiba's head and sat back down with his own team, and he congratulated himself on a job well done. Ino looked satisfied, too, and he figured she'd had the same thing in mind as he had. It wasn't long before they all broke up to their own rooms to sleep, and he hoped they might just all manage to _get_ to sleep, now.

* * *

On the mainland, a lean man with hypnotically ringed eyes lifted his hand from the head of a slumped Cloud ninja. Slowly, his eyes focused again. "They're on Cloud's Island Turtle, out on the sea. They'll be moving constantly."

The silent-footed woman beside him cupped her hands, staring into them for a moment. When she parted them a flock of paper birds fluttered up into the sky and swooped east, toward the coast. "Don't worry, Nagato. We'll find them."

* * *

Being in the temple really weirded Naruto out, but it was the only place where he could practice full transformation. At least, the only place he could practice it without totally freaking out the whole encampment, so the temple it was.

Not that he had much to freak anyone out with, so far.

"This is ridiculous." Naruto lashed the fan of furry tails trailing behind him.

 _That's my pride you're waving around,_ Nine-tails snapped. _Have a little respect, brat!_

"No, no," B waved a hand. "It's a good sign that you can manifest all the tails. That's the last step before a full transformation."

Naruto sighed. At least he was getting _somewhere_. Even if Sakura _had_ really, truly lost her mind, when he started working on this, and said the tails were cute. Cute! As if! The Nine-tails had hunkered down inside him in a disgusted huff after that one, and he hadn't been able to get a damn thing more done that day.

"You're gonna need time for this." B leaned against the temple wall, large arms folded. "It takes a lot of trust to really transform, and you and the Nine-tails haven't been talking for long."

Naruto scowled and kicked a stone stair; he knew it was probably true, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

Omoi, sitting cross-legged at B's feet, looked up at that, completely solemn. "Hey, you should be careful. I mean, what if you accidentally kicked a secret switch and set off the self-destruct for the temple and then that set off an avalanche down into the valley..."

Karui rolled her eyes and promptly put him in a headlock. Naruto grinned a little as Omoi flailed theatrically; she sure was easy to wind up. He could see why Omoi did it so much.

"Stop complaining, Naruto," Sasuke called from the steps off to the other side. "Just work on your Rasengan while you've got the tails out."

Naruto sighed. "Yeah, yeah, fine." He supposed practice was good even if it wasn't quite full power yet. And, in a way, the tails were a bonus. He chewed on his tongue with concentration, arching two of the tails forward to press against the chakra gathering in his palm.

As long as he had the tails, he didn't need clones to do this. _That_ part was kind of cool.

He had just completed a Rasenshuriken with his tails when the temple door slammed open. One of the Sand genin stood in it, panting. "Akatsuki," he gasped, "they're here! Commander Jiraiya is down!"

The Rasenshuriken came undone in a clap like thunder as Naruto sprinted for the door, jumping straight over the Sand-nin. He barely noticed Sakura and Sasuke coming up on either side or his forgotten tails streaming behind him as he streaked down the path toward the encampment, heart in his mouth. The crags and trees around them were alive with blasts and crashes, and Naruto wondered for a flashing moment whether Akatsuki had somehow had way more people than they'd all thought.

Leaping down the last steps on the temple path, Naruto looked around wildly, head whipping back and forth as he searched through the chaos for Jiraiya.

"There!" Sasuke snapped, red eyes narrow and sharp, pointing to the cracked wall of the building the Mist shinobi had taken over.

A body with long white hair lay at the base of the wall.

Naruto pounded over and threw himself down, only vaguely aware of Sakura spinning around to guard his back, of Darui standing on the broken wall and barking orders, of B coming behind them, of Sasuke on his knees on the other side of Jiraiya with wide, haunted eyes, hands reaching out helplessly. Jiraiya was barely breathing, each faint breath caught short. Broken ribs, then. Internal bleeding probably. Heat under Naruto's fingertips as he ran them delicately over Jiraiya's skull warned of bleeding there too, sluggish now because Jiraiya had almost no blood left. His throat was half crushed. And...

Naruto bared his teeth, hands pausing over Jiraiya's stomach.

"B," Darui was saying as Naruto looked up, flat and hard, "there are giant animals all over the island. Can you get the native animals after them without killing us too?"

"On it," B rumbled, running past them without breaking stride.

"Darui-san," Naruto said, low. "I'm going to try something. Don't stop me."

Darui frowned down at him. "What are you going to do?"

Naruto's hands were already lighting up with chakra as he reached down, down, crying out in wordless demand to Nine-tails. "I'm going to heal him."

Sakura knelt down beside them with her back to the wall. "Get me Hinata," she snapped, "and we can cover him."

"Like I would stop a healing?" Darui muttered before yelling for someone to find Hyuuga Hinata. Naruto shut all of that out. Sakura and Sasuke would take care of it; he trusted them. He had to, because what he was about to try wasn't actually possible. Jiraiya had a broken spine. Nerve injuries could sometimes be fixed, especially if the nerves were intact and just not signaling, or signaling wrong. A spinal cord that was physically torn couldn't be. It wasn't possible.

Well, neither was reviving someone who was dead.

He was going to do it anyway.

He focused down and down again, tighter than he'd ever done before. His hands were glowing with the fine patterning of chakra that made the base for Mystic Palms. The bleeding was stopping, and new blood was generating fast. Good. Jiraiya would live long enough for him to do this, though he'd be a while recovering the body mass being eaten up by this healing. He reached deeper into himself, and felt the fox's agreement, casual but ungrudging. Naruto gritted his teeth as that wild chakra rushed through him, sharp-edged, fighting to hold it, to work it...

His tails reached forward.

As they fanned and wrapped over Jiraiya, the raging pressure, the ragged pain of handling so much fox chakra smoothed out. Naruto rested his forehead on Jiraiya's chest, dizzy and panting, vision starting to go fractured and dark with the clash of alien and familiar as he molded chakra with his tails, wove it finer and finer, until he could string it between the snapped ends of spinal nerves, teasing them back together. Slowly, slowly, and he was gasping for air now, human hands fisted in Jiraiya's shirt as the signals of human and fox body warred up and down his own spine. The torn nerve ends crept closer, closer as he poured all his power into this most delicate of work, chakra scattering out of his control around the edges.

He was losing too much energy for the work he was accomplishing. The pace of healing was too slow. This would take too much to finish, more than he had. But he couldn't stop now, he couldn't, he wouldn't! Jiraiya had been one of the first to believe in him, to trust him and teach him, been the one to pass on the things his parents couldn't. His teacher and Sasuke's, one of the people who had helped put Sasuke back together. Naruto didn't care how much it cost him. He would find a way!

His own strength was giving out, but the fox's strength was still raging through him, threatening to overwhelm him, and there were still gaping canyons of micrometers to go, and he screamed, half at the fox and half at Jiraiya and mostly at the universe to let this work. The fox snorted, in his head, and the inhuman chakra he shaped steadied for five precious heartbeats more.

And it was done.

Naruto collapsed over Jiraiya, breath sobbing in his lungs. _You owe me one, idiot kit,_ whispered in the back of his battered-feeling brain, and a laugh wracked his body. _Yeah,_ he agreed.

"It's done!" he heard someone cry, and hands slapped down on his back, steadying his faltering heartbeat, easing his clenched lungs. Two more hands lifted his shoulders up and another set traced lightly over his chest, down his arms, pressing sharply here and there. He could feel that easing the tremble of his overextended chakra and opened his eyes wearily to smile at Hinata. She smiled back, tremulous though her hands were steady.

"...absolute _idiot_ ," the medic behind him was saying through his teeth. "Miraculous fucking moron, I can't believe you _did_ that, what kind of absolute brainless _wonder_..."

Naruto sat up mostly under his own power as his chakra and the fox's settled slowly back into balance. "I'm okay," he said, breathless.

"You are _insane_ ," the medic snapped, and Naruto craned his head around to see that it was the blue-haired senior medic from Mist. "And the Hokage is insane too, to teach you something that dangerous!" He sat back on his heels with a long sigh, finally lifting his hands from Naruto's back. "But you do seem to be recovering; that's some amazing vitality you have. If we get our beasts back, perhaps I'll suggest to the Mizukage that we should train one as a medic." He scooted around Naruto and checked Jiraiya. "He'll be all right too, I think."

Jiraiya stirred and Sasuke's hands, which Naruto finally recognized as the ones holding him upright, tightened hard on his shoulders. Sasuke was looking down at his teacher with fear lurking at the back of his eyes. Jiraiya coughed painfully and pried his eyes open to squint up at them. "Need a drink," he husked.

Sasuke inhaled alarmingly and Naruto ducked on reflex. "Shut up you absolute idiot!" Sasuke's voice echoed off the buildings. "You nearly died! Stay where you are and recover like you have more than two brain cells under all that hair!"

Naruto grinned down at Jiraiya as the man's eyes started to dance, sunken as they were. "What, don't I even get a pretty nurse?" Jiraiya asked in a pitiful tone, only slightly marred by the lingering hitch in his breathing.

"No," Sasuke said, very definitely.

Naruto was snickering and the Mist medic was rolling his eyes and Hinata was edging away cautiously when the second in command for Sound came skidding around the corner. "Darui sent me back. Where's the casualty?" she barked.

"Karin-san." The Mist-nin brightened. "Perfect." He waved a hand at Jiraiya. "The Commander needs to be on his feet again, and he's still missing a lot of blood and all his stamina. Can you do it?"

Karin snorted, throwing back one of her loose sleeves as she strode to Jiraiya's side. "Of course I can. Out of the way, you." She hip-checked Naruto aside and held out her bared arm to Jiraiya while Naruto sputtered. "Bite me," she ordered brusquely.

Jiraiya blinked. "This is a bit sudden, isn't it? No dinner first, no drinks even?"

Karin turned nearly the color of her own hair. "Shut up and bite me, you old pervert," she yelled, "before I smack you into next week!"

The Mist medic drew the rest of them back, around the corner into the overgrown stone plaza between buildings. "Karin-san can heal very bad injuries very quickly, this way," he murmured. "Best to let her get on with it."

Naruto snickered. She did seem to have the right bedside manner for someone dealing with the ero-sennin. "Okay, so..." he looked around, wobbling only slightly. "Hey, wait, where'd Darui-san go?"

"He left about the time your tails caught fire," Sakura said dryly. "He said he'd try to decoy Akatsuki long enough for you to come out of it. He didn't seem too happy at the time."

"I did warn him what I was doing," Naruto mumbled.

"No, you really didn't. But that's okay." She gave him a beady eye. "It _is_ okay, right? You're recovered? You're not holding out on the team strategist or anything?"

Naruto held up his hands hastily. "I promise not! It's gonna hurt if I have to shape too much chakra soon, but Hinata and, um," he stopped and looked at the Mist-nin guiltily.

"Maeda Kazuki," the man supplied, mouth quirked.

"Hinata and Maeda-san got me stable and all," Naruto finished. "So as soon as Jiraiya-san is better, we can go find these Akatsuki guys and kick ass."

"No need to find us," a hoarse, quiet voice said from above them, and Naruto spun around, heart tripping, to see a man in one of those damn red cloud robes standing on top of the command building and looking down at them.

Or rather... at him.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto and his yearmates face Nagato, who seems unbeatable until Naruto negotiates again with the Nine-tails and releases part of his seal. Drama, Action.

Naruto stared up at the man from Akatsuki, frozen even as Sasuke and Sakura flickered to stand in front of him and Hinata snapped her hands together at his side, Byakugan live again. The man had... really strange eyes. Purple, like Naruto had never seen before and ringed. _Stop looking,_ he told himself, _it has to be a bloodline talent, he might be able to do something to you, stop looking._ But at the same time he didn't want to take his eyes off that creepily intense stare for even a second.

"So you would be the Sacrifice of Konoha," the man said, finally, and that shook Naruto out of his stillness.

"I'm not anyone's sacrifice," he scowled.

The man blinked slowly. "Of course you are. Sacrificed the day you were born, according to our members from Konoha."

"Fuck that," Naruto said, blunt and rude. If this guy was trying to hypnotize him or something, it wasn't working! "Somebody else made that choice, yeah, but the ones since then are my own!"

"Whatever peace you may have made with your beast does not change the actions of your village," the man said in a weirdly classroom-lecture kind of tone. "They sacrificed a newborn to make a weapon of the land's spirit and further sacrificed your life every day after that to their own fears. Is that not so?"

Sakura's lip curled and she slid her hands into the first seal of her release. Lightning chakra was starting to gather around Sasuke's fingers as he glared over them. Maeda-san had melted back around the corner of the building toward Jiraiya, mouth tight, eyes burning. Shadows were starting to rustle and flicker around the edges of the plaza as people fought through whatever the hell was out in the woods to reach him, and Hinata was whispering the tally of names beside him.

"Kiba and Shino. Baki of the Sand. Choujuurou and Suigetsu of the Mist. Shikamaru, Chouji, Ino and her team. Kitsuchi of the Rock and three of his people. Iruka-sensei..."

Naruto took a long breath and looked up at the Akatsuki guy with a grin. "No," he told him. "You're totally wrong." He spread his arms out, as if to take in the whole island and all the ninja on it. "Yeah, it sucked for a while. But they got over it, and I got over it, and there are a lot of important people to me in the village, now. And, um." He let his arms drop, face getting a little hot as he glanced around at the growing rustles and emerging shinobi. "I guess I'm kind of important to them, too. So it's good."

Iruka-san landed off to his side, face grimmer than Naruto had ever seen it, glare fixed on the Akatsuki guy. Naruto could hear Kiba's growl at his back. Ino glanced at him and rolled her eyes but she was smiling. Chouji nodded without looking away from their opponent, one hand resting on Shikamaru's shoulder. Sasuke and Sakura edged a little tighter in front of him, and Naruto sure wouldn't have wanted to be the target of the looks they were giving their enemy. The fox sniffed in the back of his mind, and Naruto thought Nine-tails was amused, probably by how warm and fluffy the whole thing made him feel, Akatsuki or no Akatsuki. He flushed deeper and stuck out his tongue at the fox, in his head, and got only a brush of a laugh in return. The fox seemed strangely mellow considering who they were facing, and he reminded himself to ask why when they had time.

The man sighed. "And in your comfort you become the willing tool of your village and its wars. I suppose that's only to be expected." Those strange eyes fixed on Naruto again. "Perhaps, then, it will comfort you that your last sacrifice will serve to bring peace to your village."

"What do you mean?" Sakura snapped.

The man might have shrugged under his robe, careless of the cordon of shinobi surrounding them and him. "Once the nine tailed beasts are gathered into a single container, and its power is demonstrated to every village, there will be no more wars."

Silence slammed down over the plaza. Every face Naruto could see was horrified, and the fox's sudden growl was resonating down his spine to set his tails lashing.

"Nagato," Jiraiya rasped from behind Naruto, "that won't be a real peace."

Naruto whipped a look over his shoulder to see Jiraiya coming slowly around the corner of the broken building, leaning heavily on Kakashi-sensei's shoulder.

"It will be the most real peace there is," the man—Nagato?—returned coolly. "An unbreakable one."

"Only until people start fighting for possession of the beasts!" Jiraiya paused for a moment to catch his breath. "And didn't you once believe that people must understand pain before they will genuinely seek peace and value it? People have to find that for themselves!" Another pause to breathe, and Jiraiya finished, sadly, "You can't just order peace and have it stick."

Nagato nodded calmly. "Indeed. This is a world of suffering. Pain leads to hatred and revenge, which only gives more pain. This is the nature of life, of humans, and it can only be stopped by force." He smiled, faint and unnerving. "I will show the people what true pain is, and they will be unable to turn it toward revenge. Because that pain will be delivered by a god. This is the only thing that can break the cycle and lead people to transcend the nature of the world."

This guy was starting to remind Naruto of Itachi, and the creepy way he kept saying obviously crazy things in a totally normal way. Maybe all of Akatsuki was crazy.

"Nagato," Jiraiya whispered, brows drawn in tight and pained, "what happened to you?"

"When Yahiko was killed by treachery, my eyes were opened to the nature of life." Nagato cocked his head. "You were the one who first told us to search for peace. My answer will bring peace. Do you have any other way that will?"

"I..." Jiraiya's jaw clenched and Nagato nodded.

"Of course not. This is the only way."

"No it's _not_!" Naruto burst out indignantly. "Hey, hey, wait a minute! You mean you used to know the ero-sennin?" Naruto's tails lashed again, furious with his growing understanding. "You killed him! How could you do that? How could you do _this_?" Jiraiya had taught both Naruto and Sasuke, for crying out loud, he was amazing and he'd never have taught anyone to think like this!

"I freed him," Nagato said, like that made any kind of sense. "My last act of respect. Release from this world is the greatest mercy, and those who die to show their people pain will be the most blessed."

"The hell you say!" Naruto was nearly sputtering, his training piping up to join in the general outrage. "You don't just up and kill someone who can still live! That's for—" he broke off abruptly and swallowed. "That's for when the pain is too much," he finished, husky. "You... what are you thinking?" Did this guy... did he honestly think the whole _world_ was in that kind of pain? That the whole world needed a mercy killing? That was crazy, it wasn't peace he was talking about here it was... was... something Naruto didn't even have words for.

Nagato looked completely serene. "Ah. You do understand, then."

Naruto shuddered, and backed up a step, eyes wide. "No."

He heard Jiraiya draw in a slow breath, behind him, and when the old man spoke his voice rang over the plaza, rough but clear. "Shinobi of this mission. You will stop Nagato of Akatsuki by whatever means are necessary. For this mission and for our world." Another breath. "Nagato holds the Rinnengan bloodline talent, and can summon animals and demons, consume chakra attacks, use gravity to attack and defend, and fight with individual strength beyond anything you've ever seen. Kitsuchi-san, Sakura, Shikamaru, Choujuurou-kun! Coordinate attacks!"

Naruto saw a flash of rage on Nagato's face before he was leaping aside from Kitsuchi's fist, now sheathed in rock. "Use the time," Kitsuchi barked and struck again, only to be met hand to hand and blocked this time, without even a tremble of Nagato's wiry arms. Sakura hissed.

"Only chakra attacks would be strong enough to get through, but that must give him what he needs to keep this strength up," she muttered. "Damn it!"

Suigetsu had joined Kitsuchi, sharp teeth bared as he and the massive length of his sword whirled and struck again and again.

"The Rinnengan takes a huge amount of chakra," Jiraiya rasped, and Naruto looked back to see Kakashi-sensei lean him against the wall and prepare to join in himself. "If we can wear him out..."

Sakura's eyes flicked around, tallying up their force and she bit her lip. "We don't have enough people strong in taijutsu... can we afford to call in any more from the forest and protecting B-san?"

"Not really," Kakashi-sensei supplied dryly. "B's dealing with the other Akatsuki, and the island is crawling with small demons and giant animals."

One of Ino's intelligence team popped up beside them, saluting. "Shikamaru says to overload Nagato, and that he will hold him still for it."

Sakura's eyes lit, and she looked at Kakashi-sensei. "If we pour in more chakra than he can take, and he can't do anything with it... It's like my seal! He'll have to use his own chakra to convert and manage it, and if he can't use the influx right away to attack, we might burn him out!"

"It's our best chance," Kakashi-sensei agreed and slapped the messenger on the shoulder. "Get to the other two teams and tell them to prepare a chakra assault on Nagato as soon as he's nailed down. But keep one person back in each group, to attack after." As the man flickered off, Kakashi lifted his forehead protector, both eyes fixed on Nagato as his fingers drifted over the scrolls in his vest.

"I can see his rate of chakra consumption," Hinata reported, her eyes fixed on their opponent also. "I think I can tell you when he overloads."

"That will help," Sakura murmured, flexing her hands. "Say it loud, when he does, so those of us who have to close for this can hear you."

Hinata nodded sharp and sure, and Naruto set his feet, feeling for his own chakra reserves. He wasn't exactly recovered yet, and this really would hurt, but he could definitely get in at least one Rasenshuriken.

Sasuke was watching Shikamaru sliding through the rubble, angling to connect his shadow, both of them poised and taut.

Nagato finally threw Suigetsu away with an upraised hand, and the line of his sword cast a black bar of shadow on the ground, and for one moment it bridged between Shikamaru and Nagato. Lightning sprang up in Sasuke's hand.

"Now!" Chouji bellowed. "Fall back!"

Kitsuchi sprang away and Nagato, after one frozen moment, looked down and smiled. Slowly, slowly, he started to pull his feet free of Shikamaru's shadow. Sasuke threw a flight of Chidori Senbon at Nagato, who only laughed. The needles struck and sank into him without a trace.

"Chakra increasing," Hinata reported tightly.

As if Sasuke's attack had been an agreed-on signal, chakra attacks struck from all sides. Choujuurou's sword blazed as he swung a huge hammer shape down. The knives of the Lightning Dragon sank into Nagato's chest and legs, and Sasuke sent lightning raging down the wires. Sakura flickered forward faster than thought and slapped her hands against Nagato's back, pouring unformed chakra through her seal and into him. Fire, Water, Earth, Ice, forms Naruto had never seen struck from every side and Naruto whipped his tails forward to shape Wind into a throwing knife that felt like it was cutting him from the inside as he dragged the chakra up, and hurled it with a yell.

Shikamaru's shoulders were heaving with every breath, and he was curled down almost to his knees and elbows, but his hands were locked in the seal of his technique and his eyes were blazing over bared teeth.

"Still going. Still going," Hinata called out, almost chanting as the storm of chakra whirled around Nagato, sucked into him. "Elasticity declining! Threshold! Threshold approaching!" Her eyes widened, and she suddenly screamed, " _Scatter!_ "

Everyone sprang back and and hit the ground, and Naruto spun toward Jiraiya only to feel his knees start to buckle. He only had time to pull in a desperate breath of protest before someone caught him around the middle and he was back against the wall next to Jiraiya with Hinata, Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura. And... there was another wall on the other side. He puzzled over that for a dizzy moment before he was set down and realized that Kitsuchi had carried him back and was sheltering them.

An explosion rolled over and above them and silence followed it.

Kitsuchi-san and Kakashi-sensei exchanged a frown, and Kitsuchi lowered the stone wall with a gesture.

Nagato stood in the middle of a plaza scoured and cracked, swaying a little on his feet and smoking. He wasn't smiling any longer, but his eyes were as fixed and crazed as ever. Shikamaru was sprawled in Chouji's grasp, where it looked like he'd been thrown, unconscious. Chouji looked up as they emerged and nodded once. Naruto relaxed things he hadn't known were tense. Shikamaru was okay; good. Slowly, the other shinobi of the mission stood up from cover, on their own or over the shoulder of a comrade.

"Do you think you still have the strength to face me after that?" Nagato snarled. "Ha. And for what? Your mission? Your villages? Those who are _important_ to you?" He drew himself up, and something Naruto couldn't name shifted around him. "None of you have known enough pain to understand!"

"His body," Hinata said sharply, "his muscles and bones! They're... _sheathed_ in his chakra!"

"The Asura path," Jiraiya said, eyes dark. "His strongest hand to hand technique. At least we seem to have disrupted his control of the outwardly directed techniques, the summoning and gravitational ones. I hope." He straightened and called out. "Reserve, attack!"

Kakashi's scrolls snapped open and his pack of nin-dogs leaped to harry Nagato, to slow and distract him as Kakashi sprinted to drive a Chidori into his gut and sprang back. He was almost too late, and Nagato's elbow strike caught his shoulder, throwing him nearly back to where Jiraiya stood.

As he was thrown back Ino's team struck as one under her snapped orders, weaving a shifting circle of steel and elements around Nagato, dashing in again and again at any opening to slash with a knife or tear with an ink creature's jaws or scorch with fire. Those attacks didn't seem to penetrate very deeply, though, and Ino's mouth was tight as she caught Kitsuchi-san's eye. Her team made way for his rock punch, feinting a pincer from the sides to distract Nagato.

Naruto hoped when he saw Kitsuchi's fist hit Nagato's spine, even though it made him sick to his stomach to _hope_ for an injury like that, like the one he'd just finished healing at such cost. But even though Nagato cried out and stumbled, he was still standing, still moving, and he took Chouji's huge fist on his crossed arms and threw him back.

Choujuurou and Suigetsu struck together, catching Nagato in between the sweep of their monstrous swords, or they would have if he hadn't dodged out from between them faster than Naruto's eye could follow.

"He's still too strong," Kakashi-sensei murmured, kneeling beside Jiraiya, preparing for another try. "We can't fit enough people in close enough to land a clean strike."

That made sense, even to Naruto's weary mind. Piling on wouldn't do any good if no one had room to swing a fist and they didn't have any one or even two people strong enough to match Nagato. Not even him, not right now. If B were here, maybe he could get the Eight-tails to do it, but...

Quiet fell inside Naruto. If the Eight-tails could do it, maybe the Nine-tails could.

"So," the fox rumbled. "You have a favor to ask, hm?"

Naruto took a moment to realize that he was standing in front of the Nine-tails' gate. He looked up at the huge red eyes glaring down at him and said, simply and quietly, "Yes."

The fox sniffed. "And just how do you think that's going to work?"

Naruto leaned against the wall with a tired splash of the cold water underfoot. "I don't know. I've tried everything I can think of and none of it has worked." He crossed his arms and bit his lip, trying to think. He was so tired. Finally he looked back up at the fox and asked hopefully, "I don't suppose you'd tell me?"

"Hm." The fox looked down his very long nose at him for a moment.

"I mean," Naruto rambled on, "we have to stop him, right? We can't let him take you. And we sure can't let him kill the world!"

"Is that what he's going to do?" the fox asked thoughtfully.

"He calls it peace." Naruto snorted. "But then he turns around and talks about showing people more pain! And _then_ about how the only escape is dying!" Naruto shook his head, slumping down against the wall. "He hurts. He wants to stop hurting. I've seen that so often, now. And sometimes, yeah, there's too much damage and the right thing to do is let someone go fast. We're taught how to do that. But this...!" He met the Nine-tails' eyes, the steady burning of them. "It's like what he really wants is to make the whole world hurt like he is. And part of him thinks that will make everyone stop doing bad things. But another part knows that will just make everyone want to die as much as he does. And then he can _let_ them and that will be the right thing to do. But he only gets to it by doing everything wrong first!"

"Hmph. You have some wisdom after all, kit. I'd wondered."

Naruto glowered; that sounded like an insult. "This is like... it's like a normal thing that can be good has gotten totally out of control." He hesitated, because that was like something else, too. "Tsunade-baachan... she's never let me work on anyone with cancer. She said that the chakra I had from you might make it worse." He glanced at the fox under his lashes. Did that mean using the Nine-tails' power could make Nagato worse, too?

The fox reared up, snarling. "Well of course it would! That blond bastard sealed my yin chakra! With nothing but yang chakra to use, you can't undo a cancer; you'd have to burn it out to the last speck or else you'd just have it back twice as fast." Slowly, he settled back and added, "So you want to heal this cancer, do you?"

Naruto opened his mouth and closed it again, eyes wide. "Oh. I, um. I guess I do, yeah." He hadn't quite put it together himself, but now that the fox had he thought it was true.

The fox rolled his eyes and tilted his ears back. "Idiot kit."

Naruto shuffled on the water. "Well, he's hurt! I mean, that's obvious. We have to stop him, but..."

"But they made you into a healer." The fox looked dubious, one ear tilted back. "Which is what caused you to very nearly kill yourself just now. Are you sure you're so eager to do it again?"

"Why should it kill me?" Naruto asked cautiously. "I mean, it doesn't kill B."

The fox looked down at him for a long moment. "You have something that B doesn't. You'll need to give it up, for this to work."

Naruto blinked a few times, trying to shake his brain into making sense of that, and finally resorted to a plaintive, "Huh?"

The fox looked pointedly at the gate. "And what do you see here?"

Naruto stared at the gate. The gate itself? Or...

The seal.

"I have to undo the seal?" he squeaked. "Wait, wait, but...!"

The fox made a deeply exasperated sound, reminding Naruto all over again of Sasuke, and snapped, "Not the whole thing, but this half!"

"Half?" Naruto frowned at the paper seal.

"You have two of those on you, idiot kit," the fox growled. "The first you can't undo without killing yourself, most likely, but this one you can. And must if you want me to emerge." He glared off to the side with both ears laid back and his teeth a little bared. "That's how it was made. So I couldn't take you over when you were still a baby. Making the second layer internal instead of woven into the surface seal makes it _possible_ to undo that one. It leaves the choice up to you. You've already changed it a little, but for me to manifest? You have to undo it."

A whirl of thoughts spun through Naruto's head, wondering if his father had hoped he and the fox would trust each other eventually, wondering if it was just a fluke, wondering again why this had been done to him as a baby instead of to someone who could volunteer. The one that made it to his mouth, though, was, "So... are you saying undoing the seal will kill me?"

"It's a powerful seal." The fox still wasn't looking at him. "And you won't be able to use any of my strength to undo it. If, that is, you choose to do so."

Slowly, it came to Naruto that the fox was pissed off. Really pissed off. Not in the howling-growling way he usually was, but quietly. Because of the seal. He couldn't be angry that Naruto was thinking of breaking it, could he? Or maybe...

Maybe because it _was_ Naruto's choice.

Naruto looked down at the surface of the water he stood on, frowning. The fox, he slowly realized, hadn't had any more choice about this than he had. Every second of resentment or anger he'd felt, the fox must have felt too. Worse, probably. And three times over, now.

"I'm sorry," he finally said, softly. "I mean, not personally exactly, it's not like I volunteered for this either, but..." He looked up, and the Nine-tails was finally looking back at him again through the bars. "I'm sorry this happened to you at all." He came forward hesitantly and laid a hand against the gate. "I guess it was selfish of people, to lock you up just so you'll be their weapon or threat or something. That's wrong."

The fox stared at him silently for several breaths before he lifted his head again and shook it until his ears flapped. "It wasn't without precedent, in a way," he admitted. "Spirits have sometimes agreed to be embodied in humans, because even as it lends you our strength it lends us your thoughts and understanding. But that was an agreement between one human and one spirit."

Naruto thought about that. "So... can we have one? Between us?"

"If you dare to release the seal," the fox said, deep voice rumbling through the whole inner space, "then we will live together. As long as you live."

That wasn't exactly a yes or no, but Naruto was getting kind of used to that from the fox. Nine-tails didn't say the important things right out; you had to think about it and probably guess a little.

And... trust.

Naruto took a deep breath. Hell, it had worked with Sasuke, hadn't it? And he needed the fox. And the fox needed this, for things to be set right even a little. He still hesitated as he reached for the seal. It might kill him, the fox said. Which the fox might not mind, he'd be free after all. But Sakura and Sasuke... Iruka-san and Kakashi-sensei... his yearmates, Tsunade and Jiraiya, the village... Naruto bit his lip hard, wavering, trying to figure out what he should do, what he should risk, what was the right thing to do here and now. The fox watched silently.

 _It's a choice that comes to very powerful healers in time of war, all too often._

It was Chiyo-san's voice that whispered through his memory, and Naruto's eyes widened. He'd made that choice for Jiraiya, and now, again... "It's you," he whispered, looking up into the Nine-tails' eyes and all the rage and yearning locked behind them. "It's you I need to heal."

The eternal burn of rage died in a moment of utterly blank shock, and the fox stared at him with, Naruto would swear, absolute disbelief. That made him smile. This was right. It felt right. This was what he _should_ do.

No matter what happened.

He smiled up at the fox and reached up and tore the paper seal off the gates.

Light and sound exploded around him. All he could see was the paper, and it was clinging to the gate stubbornly. He gritted his teeth and pulled harder. Harder. His muscles felt like they might give way first, but he braced himself and pulled harder, growling. _Come loose, damn it!_ he thought fiercely at the bit of paper. _I don't want you here, come loose!_

One of the lines of inked characters started to unravel like thread.

Spurred on, Naruto pulled harder, jaw clenched, whole body screaming with the ache of the seal's resistance. Line by line, bit by bit, it came part, and he kept pulling even as his vision went cloudy and red. The only thing left was his determination to do this thing, to Lift. This. Damn. Seal!

And it came away in his hand.

Naruto thought he was falling, but he couldn't tell. Couldn't see. Wasn't sure he could breathe. Everything was red, and his ears were ringing.

No, wait. That was a howl.

Slowly vision crept back, but it was a strange kind of vision. He saw scenes, like pictures projected here and there around him. He saw the plaza from above. He saw Jiraiya slumped against the broken wall below, staring up at him. He saw Sasuke, eyes red with the Sharingan, and felt a sudden spike of wary annoyance.

Oh. It was the fox.

 _He_ was the fox. He remembered, distantly, that he'd intended that. Well good, then.

He saw Nagato and was aware of the Nine-tails pouncing. He didn't exactly feel it, not like it was his body. But he knew it was happening.

This was really weird.

He also knew that huge, clawed feet were being set down with at least a little care not to step on the scattering shinobi, so that was okay. Actually, wait, maybe he did feel something. Several somethings that were... waving. Lashing.

He could feel the damn tails.

 _I told you to have a little respect,_ the fox growled, and at least that sounded like normal.

 _Well they feel weird,_ Naruto defended himself, and then winced. Now he could feel his body, at least his head. Or... maybe the spirit of his head. Whatever it was, it hurt.

 _Shut up and rest, kit,_ the fox told him, for once sounding something besides annoyed. Not much besides, but a little. _There's work to be done. My work._

There was a reason that should alarm him, Naruto thought, but he couldn't remember what it was. Something about what the fox's work was. His purpose. To... to cleanse rot, he'd said.

To destroy corruption.

Destroy... but that wasn't...!

Naruto tried to sit up or stand up or something, tried to see and hear, tried to reach out and find the fox again in this strange, formless darkness around him. And what he saw was a ball of seething power blasting away from him, from them, and smashing into Nagato.

 _No!_

He heard the fox sniff, disgusted. _Yes, yes, I heard you the first time. You want to heal. You want to heal everything. Your perverted teacher, this Akatsuki cancer, me, who knows what all else._ The knowledge of a shrug. _You made a deal with me, when you released the seal, and I hold by my word. He's still alive. Mostly. We'll see what you make of him._ The knowledge of a smile, full of huge teeth, still just a little malicious, and a moment of sight, of Iruka-san, pale and tense, looking up at him, mouth shaping Naruto's name. _Once you wake up._

The world turned inside out again, and Naruto's senses rushed back, every one of them screaming with pain that clubbed him right back into darkness as he collapsed into Iruka-san's arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never thought much of Nagato's six-corpse stable, and the emaciation that resulted struck me as just another way to bid for our sympathy with a mass murderer. I find it much more interesting to let Nagato use all his paths in his own body, and confront other combatants instead of dropping the chakra-Bomb on a village full of civilians—and then going back on it in the most contrived deus ex machina imaginable. I prefer to let him get his ass righteously kicked and his eyes thereby opened in proper shounen tradition.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the attack, Naruto talks with the Nine-tails, Sasuke frets over Jiraiya, and Jiraiya has to deal with Nagato and Konan (kleenex advisory). Drama.

Kakashi sat by Naruto's bed, reading and watching the clock, and wondering who was going to appear next. He calculated that his order for Sasuke and Sakura to get some more rest would hold for another two hours or so, Hinata was on duty keeping watch on the sea, Chouji was watching over Shikamaru, and Ino had been in three people ago. According to the averages he'd calculated over the past thirty-eight hours, the next person to stop and check on Naruto should be another from Leaf, but who was most likely?

It was a usefully distracting thing to think about while Naruto lay unconscious, and Kakashi had further calculated that he was getting almost three times the information sitting here talking to visitors that he otherwise would have heard as commander of the Leaf contingent.

Right on time, plus or minus five minutes, there was a tap at the door and it was Iruka who looked in. Kakashi nodded, satisfied; he'd guessed either Iruka or Sai, and the latter probability wasn't for reasons he would like. Sai had been watching Naruto the entire time they'd been here, and Kakashi had his suspicions about exactly whose orders the boy was under.

"How is he?" Iruka asked softly.

Kakashi smiled behind his mask; definitely better a visit from Iruka. "Still asleep. Still recovering. Maeda has invented, at last count, five new names to call Naruto while tending him, and that seems like a good sign." At Iruka's blink he elaborated, "Maeda only yells at his patients once they're out of danger, I've noticed."

Iruka came to sit carefully on the edge of Naruto's bed, as if he didn't want to wrinkle the rough, blue blanket, and brushed some unruly blond hair back with a gentle hand.

"How is Shikamaru?" Kakashi asked, offering a little distraction in turn.

Iruka flushed. "Ah. That's what I was coming to report, actually. He's conscious, and the other medic from Mist says he'll be fine once he recovers his strength." Iruka's eyes darkened. "He drained himself completely, holding that Shadow Binding so long. But," Iruka brightened a little, "I think it helped in the long run. Being so instrumental in defending Naruto from Akatsuki, I mean. He seems a little more at peace, now."

"Good," Kakashi said, and meant it. He hadn't been thrilled with the idea of having another revenge-mad shinobi under his command right after Sasuke had finally settled down. "And how are the prisoners?"

Iruka frowned down at the bed. "Nagato is still out, even deeper than Naruto. Maeda-san judges that he's in a coma and can't say whether he'll actually come out of it. There's been some discussion of asking Motoki-san, the interrogation specialist Valley brought, to attempt entering his mind."

"Hm." Kakashi crossed an ankle over his knee, leaning back in his rickety camp chair to think about the things Valley's Yuzuki had said when _she'd_ visited yesterday. "From what I hear, Konan might be a surer target. As long as we agree to keep Nagato alive, I expect she'd be willing to tell us whatever we want." He tapped a finger on his knee and ordered, "Mention that to Darui-san, when you go back out." After a moment of hesitation he added, "It is still Darui-san, isn't it?"

Iruka bowed his head. "Jiraiya-sama still says that he isn't objective enough to make decisions about Nagato and Konan, yes." He sighed, one hand sneaking out to close on Naruto's forearm. "It must be extremely difficult for him, to face one of his own students who's run so very mad."

Bad luck had certainly seemed to attend the students of the Hokage and candidates for generations, Kakashi reflected. Sarutobi and Orochimaru. Jiraiya and Nagato. Minato-sensei and Obito, and the Fourth hadn't lived long enough to teach his own son at all. Kakashi could only hope he and Tsunade had broken the chain. "Maybe I should send Sasuke to see Jiraiya, next time he shows up down here," he mused.

Iruka laughed at that. "Sasuke has been in to see him more than once. There's usually yelling. I'm surprised you haven't heard it all the way across the building, here."

"I think they chose this for the hospital building because of the thick walls," Kakashi murmured, amused. "Speaking of yelling," he added, cocking his head. Yes, that sounded like Karin's voice coming down the hall, all right.

"...don't understand, what I do is a bloodline talent," she was saying as she swept into the room followed by Darui. "I wind it up and let it go, it's not like what a medic does! So what if Naruto's system is too messed up to send the chakra where it needs to go? What if it goes to the Nine-tails instead?! That would just screw the guy up even more! It's not a good risk until he's awake again."

Darui sighed. "Well, it was worth asking." He nodded to Kakashi. "How's the kid doing?"

Kakashi checked the clock; this was earlier than the next visitor was due, by his estimate. Darui must have a particular reason for coming. "He's sleeping normally, if unwakeably. Has something come up?"

Darui leaned against the wall, arms folded, as Karin drifted over to fuss with Naruto's blanket. "I hear that his seal changed, after he transformed. Is that normal for Konoha's hosts?" Unspoken was the second half of the question _or is it something to worry about?_ , and Kakashi set his book aside and folded his hands as he considered how best to answer.

"The Leaf's hosts have not, previously, manifested the Nine-tails," he said at last. "So this isn't exactly normal, no. But I don't think it's cause for alarm. The Eight Trigrams seal is made up of two subsidiary seals. One of those was released, but the other remains." He hesitated, but the fact was there was only one person on the Island who knew more, no matter how much that person wanted privacy right now. "I didn't know his mother, but Jiraiya-san did. He can tell you if I'm right or not. I suspect the seals are layered, one to contain the Nine-tails in the body of the host, and the second to hold it back from the host's spirit. I believe Naruto released the second one."

"Shredded it is more like," Karin muttered, looking down at Naruto penetratingly. "Just look at this mess! It's like he just went and ripped it apart with his bare will!"

Kakashi's mouth quirked ruefully. "Yes. He probably did."

Karin looked up to glower at him. "Well, teach him how to do it better!" She went back to fussing with the blanket, eyes softening. "He has lovely chakra, it deserves better."

Kakashi stored that observation away to repeat to Naruto when he woke up, in case he needed to fluster his student into compliance with the medics. He opened a hand at Darui. "So I don't think there's any risk to the Nine-tails' containment, though I imagine it and Naruto will benefit from some further instruction if B-san is willing."

The hard line of Darui's shoulders relaxed. "Good," he murmured. "That's good." He closed his eyes for a moment, looking as if he wanted to just go to sleep right there against the wall. Clearly, it had been a hard day and a half for him, cleaning up after Akatsuki's attack. Kakashi sympathized completely, and with a reasonable amount of terror as he stared down the length of a blade named "Rokudaime Hokage", which was going to be even worse.

A rap on the door interrupted them, and B stuck his head through. "So, hey, how's the kid?"

Kakashi checked the clock reflexively and smiled. Right on time.

* * *

For the first little while, Naruto thought he was dreaming. He was standing on bottomless water, and every movement stirred ripples across it. The sky was light; not blue, just light. There were huge rocks here and there, like some kind of rock garden only with water instead of gravel under it. And that was all.

At least he thought that was all. But eventually he realized that the Nine-tails was sitting next to him, and had been for a long time; he had no idea how he could have not noticed.

One huge ear flicked at him. "Awake at last?" the fox rumbled.

"I... guess so?" Naruto looked around. "Is this real?"

The fox snorted, rippling the water in front of his nose. "It's your spirit, idiot kit, you tell me."

"Huh." Naruto sat down crosslegged beside the fox's head. "So how come we're both in here?"

"Because your spirit hasn't repaired itself sufficiently for your consciousness to touch the world again."

Naruto puzzled at that. "So... I'm injured, huh? From the seal?"

"Indeed." One red eye opened and looked at him sternly. "What kind of fool tries to _tear apart_ a seal instead of releasing it?"

"Well, I don't know how to release it," Naruto explained reasonably. "I'm not much good with seals, really, and besides no one ever taught me Eight Trigrams."

The fox actually put a paw over his face.

Naruto rubbed a hand over the back of his head, sheepish. "I'll, um, learn it, okay?" He supposed he really should if he meant to release the fox before his death, which he kind of did at this point. "Oh, hey, that reminds me." He leaned back on his hands looking up at the fox. "You said your yin chakra was sealed, right? What seal is that? I'll look that one up too." Maybe the fox would be less cranky once his chakra was properly balanced again and not chained up or whatever.

The fox lifted his head to look down at him, unreadable. "The Ten Stems Twelve Branches Seal," he said after a long moment. "It creates a separate world to contain whatever is sealed, and that world is forever severed from this one."

Naruto stopped still, eyes wide. "My dad... did that?" he asked in a small voice.

The fox turned his head away to look out over the water and stone. "Minato of the Leaf apologized," he said at last, the rumble of his voice distant. "He said he knew I was being controlled. But that seal was one of the few that would last beyond his death, and the only one of those that would not cause me great pain."

Naruto slumped a little. "I guess I can understand that, considering Madara was still trying to get you," he said slowly. Abruptly he sat back up. "Hey, wait a minute. If it's _completely_ separated, and that was your spiritual strength, that means..." He stared up at the fox, face cold as his blood drained out of it and the magnitude of that kind of amputation on a spirit creature hit him. "Nine-tails!"

A shudder ran through the length of the fox and he threw up his muzzle. "Why the hell do you think I've been so damn infuriated all this time?!" he howled, fit to break the sky with the sound.

Naruto winced, but he also reached out again, gripping the fox's foreleg with both hands. "I said I'd heal you and I will," he yelled, and sighed as the echoes of the fox's howl died away across the water. "Tsunade-baachan will know how to do it. She could even heal someone from something like the Dead Demon Consuming seal. I'll get her help."

The fox's ears and brows both went up. "You think she'll actually consent?"

Naruto scowled, folding his arms stubbornly. "It's not right! It's not right to keep your chakra unbalanced like that! I don't care how important it was to stop you then, it isn't _right_!" He set his jaw. "I'll convince her."

After a moment, the fox snorted and settled back down beside him. "Somehow I'm not surprised."

Naruto grinned a little and leaned against his shoulder, ignoring the growl he got for that. "Good. You're learning."

* * *

Sasuke sat perched in the broad stone window of Jiraiya's room in the makeshift hospital, watching his teacher brood. It wasn't really obvious, he supposed, not like the way he brooded himself, or the way Kakashi-sensei sometimes did. But Jiraiya's eyes were distant and despite his smooth expression there were tiny, tight lines at the corners of his mouth. Yelling hadn't worked so far, to stop those lines. It was time to try something more serious, and hope he got it right. He wished Naruto were awake to help; he always seemed to get it right without thinking.

Sasuke sighed and pulled up a knee and wrapped his arms around it, looking out the window at the sun falling over smashed trees and walls. "So he's more important than we are?" he asked quietly. From the corner of his eye he saw Jiraiya start.

"Of course not," the old man said gruffly. "Nagato is just... a little more obtrusive at the moment. He's the one who just tried to kill the lot of us, after all."

"Ah." Sasuke let that lie for a moment before he added, "So failure is more significant than success. After all," he went on before Jiraiya could protest. "Naruto just saved the lot of us." And Jiraiya was one of Naruto's teachers, too.

Jiraiya closed his mouth and slumped back against the pillows folded up behind him. "I think I taught you a little too well," he grumbled.

A corner of Sasuke's mouth tugged up; he had to admit there was some definite satisfaction in turning his teacher's annoyingly thought-provoking techniques back around on him. "Yes, you did. So obviously you can't be a failure as a teacher."

Jiraiya hunched down a bit, a lot the way Naruto did when he was getting stubborn, and Sasuke snorted. He was quiet for a while, watching the Island's gray and brown birds flitting through the rearranged forest around the encampment, exploring. At last he said, quietly, "When we caught up with Itachi... to make it right, to make it the justice of my clan as well as my village, I had to outlaw him. I had take responsibility for Uchiha to do that, and for a while I thought that meant I was responsible for him too. But I wasn't. I'm not. It was his choices and actions that outlawed him and no matter..." Sasuke stopped and had to swallow before he could go on, husky, sunlight blurring in his eyes, "no matter how much I loved him, that was him. Not me. And not Uchiha." He blinked his eyes clear again, still looking outward while he listened to the silence inside the room. Finally he added, softly, "It was something you said that made me realize that."

When he finally looked around, Jiraiya had his head bowed over crossed arms. "Are you saying that there's responsibility I need to take here?" the old man asked.

Sasuke thought about that, about what it meant to teach. To lead. "Yes," he said at last. "Just not the kind you've been thinking of."

"Ruthless, aren't you?" Jiraiya murmured. A laugh caught Sasuke, at that.

"Yeah. That's one of the things Uchiha is." He swung his legs off the window and came to stand beside Jiraiya's bed, looking down with a tiny smile. "I decided that it would be."

Just as Jiraiya had told him to decide.

The answering smile, when Jiraiya looked up, had a wry tilt to it, but the tight lines at the corners of his mouth were easing. Jiraiya unfolded his arms and flexed his shoulders. "All right, you've said your piece. Don't you have some duty or other to get to?"

Sasuke let himself thump back against the wall with a sigh, reminded. "Not really, not until—"

The door crashed open, hard enough to chip the stone of the wall, and Sakura stood panting in the opening, eyes wide and hair wild. "Sasuke! Naruto's awake!"

Fear that Sasuke had been pushing relentlessly down for two days snapped loose and shot Sasuke forward at a dead run, sprinting down the halls and pushing off walls as he took the corners. Sakura was right on his heels as they piled into Naruto's room, and a corner of Sasuke's mind was pleased to note that Jiraiya was right behind her. But most of him was lit up with the pure relief of seeing his friend, his _family_ , sitting up in bed with blue eyes open and tracking what was around him. There was a yelp from somewhere as Sasuke skidded to a stop by the bed and seized Naruto's shoulders. "Are you okay?" he demanded.

Naruto blinked at him. "Um..."

"That," Maeda-san grated from where he was wedged up against the wall by the force of Sasuke and Sakura's entrance, "is what we were determining. _If_ you don't mind."

"I'm okay," Naruto assured them as Sasuke reluctantly let go of him and edged back. "Honest. Taking off half the seal was just a lot of work on top of everything else." He looked past them and broke into a sunny smile. "Ero-sennin can wiggle his toes and everything, though, right?"

"I'm completely fine," Jiraiya assured him, smiling back with his own relief clear in his eyes. "Thanks to you, I understand."

" _As_ I told you already," Maeda pointed out. "Now if everyone doesn't shut up and keep out of my way, I'm going to throw all of you out of the room until this examination is done."

Sasuke and Sakura reluctantly backed off under his medical glower to stand against the wall next to Kakashi-sensei, who was watching the whole performance with amusement clear in the crinkle of his eye. As Maeda prodded at Naruto and made him stand on one foot and grip things, though, Sasuke and Sakura exchanged a questioning look, starting to be worried again. Naruto wasn't acting like himself. He was cooperating quietly and hadn't demanded food once, so far.

"All right," Maeda said at last, "your chakra seems to have replenished itself and you have less weakness than I'd have expected after fifty hours asleep." He stood back with his hands on his hips, surveying his patient. "I guess all the legends about the Uzumaki clan were true."

Naruto winced just a little at that, and Sasuke frowned. He knew that wince—knew it from the inside. Naruto was worried about his family or clan for some reason.

Naruto nodded along quietly as Maeda listed the things he wasn't supposed to do (exert himself) or was supposed to do (eat and exercise lightly) for the next week, and, as soon as Maeda finished, Naruto looked over at Jiraiya.

"Hey. You... you knew my parents, right? Pretty well?"

"Very well, I'd say," Jiraiya answered, brows raised. "Is there something you need to know?"

Naruto chewed on his lip and Sasuke abandoned the wall to come lay a hand on his shoulder even as Sakura tugged Naruto back down to the edge of the bed and sat beside him with an arm around him. Naruto's shoulders were tight under his hand.

"It's... I mean, I know you weren't _there_ , and no one really saw much of the fight, but..." Naruto wound his fingers together and clasped them between his knees, looking down at them. "Nine-tails says my dad cut away his yin chakra. Sealed it with Ten Stems Twelve Branches. And I just... why? Why would he do something that extreme, that permanent?"

Maeda's breath hissed in past his teeth, and Kakashi-sensei's smile-crinkles vanished into a level, waiting look. Sasuke slid onto the bed behind Naruto, pressing close along with Sakura to support their third.

Jiraiya let out a slow breath, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "Naruto. Tsunade has taught you compassion and the strength to heal, and those are good things. But she's also taught you to kill hasn't she?"

Naruto nodded, watching Jiraiya with dark eyes. "When there's no other way."

"When there's no other way, yes," Jiraiya repeated, gently. "The Nine-tails had just attacked the village for a second time, and killed all too many of our mature shinobi. If he was being controlled, it was, in a way, all the worse. That meant it might well happen again, because we hadn't caught his controller yet. And once Madara had escaped... what else could Minato do, to protect his village, but ensure that the Nine-tails would be weakened? And I know he would have wanted to protect you as much as possible, to ensure the Nine-tails couldn't overwhelm you while you were a baby."

"If he worried that much, why did he seal it in me at all?" Naruto muttered. "Why not someone who could agree to it?"

Jiraiya sighed and rocked forward in his chair to lay a hand on Naruto's knee. "I believe there were two reasons for that. One was that your bloodline was the only one in the village with a proven ability to hold the Nine-tails without damage to yourself. And the other..." Jiraiya smiled a little. "He believed in you. I know that for certain."

Naruto swallowed hard and Sakura tightened her arm around him. "When there's no other way," he said, husky. "That... that's why my dad apologized to the fox, I guess."

"You know," Sakura said, hesitantly, "he might have thought it wouldn't be permanent. Chakra does regenerate, a lot more often than the body alone. And Ten Branches Twelve Stems wouldn't have the complications some of the other permanent seals do. That would just... cut it away. Maybe he thought the fox could grow it back in time."

"It's not impossible," Maeda agreed, watching Naruto with a medical sort of frown. "It would take hundreds of years, most likely, for an amputation on that scale and for something as powerful as a tailed beast. But it's not impossible."

Naruto straightened up, and Sasuke breathed a silent sigh of relief, feeling his tension turn into more familiar determination. "Right, then. I hope he did think that; but, whatever he thought, I'll make it happen. And a lot faster than a few hundred years, too!"

"Not right away!" Maeda snapped, looking seriously alarmed. "Not this week, not next week, not this month! You will _not_ engage in major healings for at least six weeks, is that clear?"

Naruto looked over his shoulder at the man, pouting. "I wasn't gonna do it right away."

"Yes," Maeda said, eyes narrowing. "You were."

Naruto hunkered down guiltily and Sakura broke into helpless giggles against his shoulder. "He's gotten to know you," she said, grinning.

"We'll make sure he doesn't overtax himself," Sasuke assured the medic. And, when Naruto stirred under his hands in protest, added blandly, "I'm sure the Hokage will want to be involved."

Naruto winced, probably in anticipation of what his teacher would say about everything he'd been doing lately, which had been more or less the idea. Sasuke nodded to himself, satisfied, and glanced over at his own teacher.

Jiraiya was sitting up straight again, like he knew what his spine was there for, and his smile was finally more than just a stretch of his mouth. Sasuke settled against Naruto's back, finally relaxing. All his people were better, now.

"So, hey," Naruto said, straightening up again. "Is B-san okay? What happened with him? What happened while I was sleeping?" His stomach growled, and he added without pausing for breath, "I want food, you can tell me what happened over food, right?"

Jiraiya laughed. "He's recovered," he told Maeda, and stood up. "Sakura and Sasuke can fill you in over lunch." His eyes met Sasuke's for a moment. "I have some other things to see to, right now."

Sasuke smiled a little. "Come on," he told Naruto, and added as they turned down the hall, "B is fine. Not that the Akatsuki woman was easy to deal with, from what everyone said, but it sounds like Temari and Kurotsuchi of the Rock make a very good team against a paper user..."

* * *

Kakashi watched Jiraiya watching their three young shinobi leave, shadowed by Maeda, most likely to make sure Naruto ate as well as talked. The old man looked more awake and alive than he had for days; good.

"So," Jiraiya murmured, folding his arms. "When is Tsunade getting here?"

Kakashi straightened in his chair, startled. "Ah..."

Jiraiya turned to look at him, one corner of his mouth quirked up. His eyes were sharp again. "Her student does something most think is impossible and then knocks himself unconscious transforming completely? Don't try to tell me you didn't send a bird to her immediately. When's she due?"

Kakashi relaxed back into his chair with a sigh of heartfelt relief at the return of that sharpness. "Day after tomorrow, I expect, as close as the Turtle is to the Fire coast." And he'd been going to set her on Jiraiya if Sasuke hadn't been able to get through before then. He smiled behind his mask. "Something you wanted to do before then?"

"Not particularly, but it's something I need to do anyway." One of Jiraiya's hands drifted back to touch his main scroll. "I need to talk to Nagato."

"He's still unconscious," Kakashi observed neutrally. Would Jiraiya really...?

"There are ways to deal with that."

Kakashi searched Jiraiya's face, finding lines of determination and a little grimness, but not the shock and despair that had made the man's eyes so empty and distant lately. "Is this something the whole command group should hear?" he asked quietly.

Jiraiya sighed. "Yes, I expect it is."

Kakashi bowed his head to their commander, vanishing his book. "I'll get them."

By the time he rounded everyone up and came along with Darui and Samui to the low building that had been turned into the mission's prison, Jiraiya was already finishing his argument with the younger of Mist's two medics.

"...clearly understood that I think this is unwise," the young man was saying, frowning as he stood in the doorway to Nagato's room.

"It is. It's also necessary," Jiraiya told him flatly, and the boy finally sighed and stood aside.

"Jiraiya-san is recovered?" Darui murmured to Kakashi, very quietly. Kakashi nodded just a bit, and smiled to himself as the tight line of Darui's shoulders eased. Jiraiya had led them well so far, on this mission, and just about everyone had gotten to at least respect him. Half the inquiries he'd fielded about Naruto's recovery had somehow managed to include a segue to Jiraiya.

And now, he suspected, they were about to get another reason for that respect.

The woman, Konan, looked up from her chair at Nagato's bedside as they all filed into the long room where she and Nagato were being held. She looked different without her Akatsuki robe, less like a cipher and more familiar to them all—a mature kunoichi in snug halter and pants that showed hard muscles and the straightness of her spine. Her mouth flinched when she saw Jiraiya and she looked back down at the Wood cuffs that Yasumori Takuma was currently holding on her wrists. "Jiraiya-san," she said, level and quiet.

"Konan," he greeted her steadily and looked down at the figure on the bed, face still hollow with the chakra he'd consumed and expended. "Nagato is still unconscious?" At her nod he sighed. "I'm going to have to wake him."

Her head jerked up at that, cloud-gray eyes wide. "I can tell you whatever you need to know!" she protested. "Don't...!" She bit it off as he touched her hair gently, where she had worn her paper flower.

"No, Konan," Jiraiya told her gently. "I'm afraid you can't tell me this."

"It was Yahiko's death," she whispered, staring up at him. "And if Nagato's plan could keep that kind of thing from happening—over and over again!—how could I not help?"

"Even when your own hands made it happen, over and over again, ever since you joined Akatsuki?"

"And how are you different?" she ripped back at him.

Jiraiya crouched down in front of her, wrapping his hands around hers. "I'm different because I keep trying," he said softly. "Instead of giving in to despair because there's no simple answer." He gave her a wry, tilted smile. "Not one that doesn't involve destroying everything, at least. Destruction is simple, I'll give you that. But it won't actually fix anything. I don't know whether I can fix this either," he went on, nodding to Nagato's still body, "but I'll try. That's the only thing that truly lets us move forward. Remember that, all right?"

She bit her lip hard, staring at him with fierce, wounded eyes, and finally, slowly nodded. Kakashi watched the gathered shinobi, the smile on Kitsuchi's face and the impatience on Kurotsuchi's, the relief in Darui's eyes and the respect in Haruto of the Grass', Tomita of the Sound's quiet waiting and the way Kankurou drew nearer his sister and rested a hand on her back though neither of their expressions changed in the slightest. The part of him that had still been on guard, waiting to see whether Jiraiya's incapacitation these past days would break his ability to command the mission, finally eased.

Jiraiya straightened and turned to the Yasumori siblings. "Will you be able to hold your bindings on him, if I can wake him?"

"Both of us together should, since they're already on him," Yuzuki answered, folding her hands into the Snake to match her sibling. "Go ahead."

Kakashi perked up when Jiraiya summoned two small and old-looking toads. He'd heard that Jiraiya had a technique he used with his summons, but he'd never seen it or spoken himself with anyone who had.

He thought, with some hidden amusement, he might understand why when Jiraiya changed, eyes turning slotted, chin hairy, nose large and warty, because at the first muffled "Egh..." from Samui Jiraiya's shoulders slumped. He actually looked mournful, alarming face and all, until the female toad jabbed him in the ear with one purple elbow.

"Get your mind back on the job," she ordered briskly, and Jiraiya sighed and straightened.

He looked far more imposing when he stepped forward and held his hands out over Nagato, and those strange eyes turned distant. Karin gasped, one hand pressed tight over her mouth when Kakashi glanced over at her.

"What?" Souta of the Grass murmured.

"He's... that's... that's nature energy," Karin whispered, staring. "Unformed! Unchanged! How is it not... oh." She pushed her glasses up her nose with a slow breath. "The toads are channeling it for him, so it doesn't burn him out. Still. To handle that much of it—" she broke off with a choked sound as Jiraiya lowered his hands to Nagato's chest.

"Nagato," Jiraiya called, and Kakashi flipped his forehead protector up abruptly to watch with his Sharingan because he swore the name had made the room ripple, even to normal sight. With the Sharingan, he could see the riptide of chakra Jiraiya was handling more clearly and understood why Karin was leaning back against the stone wall, trembling.

He could also see that Konan was tense and poised on the edge of attacking, cuffs or no cuffs, and when he spoke it was as much to her as to the rest of the command group. "He's reminding Nagato's body and mind of how it fits into the world. Like digging a hole deeper so water flows down into it." And if he lost control of that chakra-form he was holding to make the space of Nagato's body-and-soul resonate, Nagato would burn out like tinder in an instant. But he didn't think this was the moment to mention that part.

Seconds ticked by, stretching the atmosphere of the room tighter and tighter, and when Nagato finally stirred and Jiraiya lifted his hands, a shiver ran through the entire group. Konan pushed forward off her chair to kneel by Nagato's bed, bound hands closing tight on his shoulder.

"Nagato," Jiraiya called again, quietly this time. Slowly, Nagato's eyes opened, blank and dark as he stared up at Jiraiya.

"Why am I alive?" he finally asked, voice rough and cracking.

"Because Naruto is more stubborn than you and the Nine-tails put together, I'd say," Jiraiya answered dryly, which provoked a rustle of amusement from everyone who'd had to deal with Naruto during this mission. More soberly, he asked, "Did you intend to die?"

Nagato's eyes shifted to look up at the ceiling. "That would be one form of peace."

"Nagato," Konan whispered, fierce denial ringing through even that single word. After a fumbling moment, Nagato lifted both his bound hands to rest on hers, on his shoulder.

"I would have stopped it," he husked. "The pain."

"No," Jiraiya said quietly, "you would only have changed the shape of it. Just as many would have died. Just as many would have grieved. Nothing would truly have changed." He sighed and released his technique, melting back into his familiar form, and now Kakashi could see more clearly the sorrow etching age's lines deeper into his face. "Nagato," he said, softly, reaching out a hand to the thin young man on the bed, "if you can't do any more than what you have, you don't have to. It's all right."

Kakashi frowned behind his mask, trying to make sense of that, hearing a whisper of puzzlement from the command group behind him.

"What else is my life for, then?" Nagato asked. "Why else am I alive and not Yahiko? Why else do I have these eyes? You said it yourself."

Jiraiya sat heavily on the side of the bed. "I never meant to lay that kind of fate on you. To find peace for the world isn't the kind of burden any one person can carry alone. We all carry it together."

Nagato laughed at that, breathy and bitter. "The only place everyone together is carrying the world is down into blood and death."

Jiraiya looked down at him thoughtfully. "After so long with Akatsuki, I'm not surprised you think so," he finally said, "but consider that you _are_ still alive. That was Naruto's doing, and Naruto himself is still alive and sane because of his team, his yearmates, his teachers, the friends he's made in his village and in others." Jiraiya's mouth quirked. "He'll tell you, if you ever ask him, that he's going to become Hokage and change things. Everything. The village and the ninja and international politics and the nature of humanity. But he's only added all those bigger things once he started making more friends and allies." He reached out and rested one broad, roughened hand on Nagato's chest, over his heart. "What friends and allies do you have, to help you carry this?"

Nagato was looking at Jiraiya again, instead of the ceiling, still but also uncertain now, clinging to Konan's hands. "After Yahiko died? Konan."

"And me," Jiraiya added gently, and Nagato's chest heaved with the abrupt breath he sucked in. Kakashi thought those fixed, ringed eyes filmed with water for a moment. "But even then," Jiraiya went on as though he hadn't noticed, "that isn't enough to carry such a large burden." He smiled. "So it's all right to put it down. It's all right."

Now Kakashi understood what Jiraiya had said earlier, and was impressed all over again by Jiraiya's compassion and insight; truly, this was the teacher who had saved Sasuke from his own demons. All around the room, he saw shoulders fall and crossed arms loosen and eyes widen with similar understanding. Karin, he was a little amused to note, was positively blushing.

"It took Naruto to remind me, and Sasuke to make me listen," Jiraiya said quietly, "but all we can do, any of us, is the best we can at the time. And then we have to keep trying to make the outcome better. That's the trick. Whether it's the results of our own actions or our parents' or even our opponents', we have to keep trying to make it come out better. That's how we move forward, Nagato; not carried on the back of one person, but hand to hand down the years, all of us going on as best we can." He leaned forward and rested his hand over Nagato's and Konan's. "All you have to be is your own pair of hands, alongside all those of your friends. That's all."

"Is it really all right, after all this? Can I really stop?" Nagato asked, suddenly sounding very young. He looked from Jiraiya to his partner. "Konan?"

Konan's lashes were wet and Kakashi saw Yuzuki's hands slide quietly into the Ram as Konan wrapped her suddenly freed arms around Nagato. "You can stop," she whispered against his hair. "It will be all right. I'm sorry I didn't see."

Nagato laughed unsteadily, pressing his face against her shoulder. "I'm the one with the eyes, and I didn't either," he said, soft and muffled. Jiraiya rested his hand on Konan's head, watching them with soft eyes and for a long moment there was no other sound in the room than the two partners finding each other again.

Finally, though, Darui stirred. "I hate to be the one who breaks this up, but... I really don't think the Kage and Masters will be all right with two ex-Akatsuki members wandering around loose, even if they say they're not interested in world conquest any more."

"Ah." Jiraiya looked just a little shifty. "Well, as to that. I thought, you know, there are theoretical techniques that can suppress chakra expression. And I expect Tsunade will be here to check on Naruto any day. If she could do that, they could return to Leaf with me..."

Konan sat up, wiping her eyes with the back of a hand. "We don't belong to the Leaf, though," she said softly, still looking down at Nagato, one hand stroking back his hair.

"No, you don't." Choujuurou stepped forward from the back of the group where he usually wound up, and people parted before the levelness of his gaze. "You belonged to the Rain once. Is that still so?"

Nagato frowned a little, and it was Konan who met Choujuurou's eyes, just as steady as he was. "Hidden Rain is still my home."

Choujuurou nodded as though he'd expected to hear that, and looked around at the command group. "Even when Kisame-senpai was one of Akatsuki, even when he was killed in their service, he was still of the Mist. His body and sword were welcomed home. Let them return to Hidden Rain."

"Hanzou will just kill them," Jiraiya objected, and then paused. "Well." He scratched his nose thoughtfully. "Probably. It's hard to tell with him, sometimes. He does respect fighting spirit." He smiled crookedly, looking down at Konan's lifted chin and straight back.

"You said change was the work of many hands." Konan looked back at Nagato, hands tightening around his. "We were not alone, in Rain. You know we weren't."

"I don't think I know what I'm doing any more, though." Nagato's eyes were fixed on her as if the two of them were alone.

She smiled and leaned down to kiss his forehead. "That's all right. Rest and think until you do. I carry on Yahiko's spirit too; I'll do the planning for this one."

Nagato's smile was soft and trusting, and Kakashi felt a bit like an intruder just seeing it. "All right."

Jiraiya nodded quietly and stood. "Will the villages trust me to see these two back to their own land, then?" he asked, looking around at the gathered representatives.

"Be good for Hanzou to have something at home to worry about," Souta grunted, and, despite an admonishing look at his second in command, Haruto nodded agreement.

Yuzuki gestured to her brother, who flicked his hands through five seals, separating Nagato's hands as well though the Wood cuffs remained. "Hidden Valley agrees."

"However it comes out, it seems like a just solution," Tomita said.

"Nagato seems little more danger than Hanzou already was," Kitsuchi allowed dryly, hands on his hips.

"Our brother will find this acceptable, I believe," Temari agreed quietly.

Darui was silent for a long moment, staring down at his crossed arms. "I doubt the Raikage will be very happy with it," he said at last. "But as the other villages all seem to agree I'm going to go ahead and say do it." A corner of his mouth quirked up. "A-sama will yell no matter what; when he calms down he'll probably talk himself around to the idea."

Jiraiya smiled and Kakashi could see the tension easing out of his arms and face. "Good. Once Tsunade gets here, then, I'll take these two home."

Kakashi winced at the thought of the Hokage being stressed over what her student had been doing to himself and not having her old teammate there to take out her temper on. "You just want to be out of range while she shouts and pounds on people," he muttered.

"With age comes wisdom, Kakashi-kun," Jiraiya told him sententiously, not denying a thing, Kakashi couldn't help noticing.

Konan and Nagato broke into stifled laughter against each other's shoulders, and Kakashi gave his half-formed argument up for lost, watching the gentle look Jiraiya bent on his long-ago students. His mere bodily integrity was no match for that kind of expression. He'd just have to stand Tsunade's ire as best he could and hope something distracted her.

The command team was just starting to turn away, preparing to leave again, when the door to the room slammed open.

"Commander!" Omoi leaned in the doorway, panting and a little wild-eyed. "Jiraiya-san! One of the Leaf-nin just tried to kill Naruto!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Minato supposedly used the Shiki Fuujin to seal Kyuubi's yin chakra; and yet we still see his spirit running around merrily, apparently quite at liberty. Yet another continuity fail, which leaving bits of chakra behind does not explain terribly well. Also, what kind of bastard severs half of a (relatively) innocent creature's soul and condemns it to torment as it's _soul rots_? *shudders* No, that technique just doesn't fit here. So I made up a new one that does fit the actual results we're shown.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Most of the Konoha contingent ingathers to deal with Sai's attack on Naruto and its implications. In the wake of this, Naruto proposes his new plan to Tsunade. Drama, Angst.

The only reason Sakura didn't kill Sai immediately was that Ino got in her way.

"Interrogation," Ino reminded her, clipped, as she pulled her garrote tight around Sai's throat and nodded to Chouji, who slowly took his weight off Sai's back.

Sakura snarled softly, aware that her lip was curled up off her teeth and not bothering to lower it. How dare he. After they'd survived the Akatsuki attack, after Naruto had finally woken up again, how _dare_ one of their own people turn on him like this!

"Easy, there," B rumbled from behind her, where Sasuke was guarding Naruto. "Not saying it's a good reason, but maybe he had family in the last attack by the Nine-tails? Wouldn't be surprised if it came out now, after a full manifestation."

Sai looked up at them, perfectly blank, as if he didn't even feel Ino's garrote. "Family?"

Or as if he didn't understand the words. Quiet rippled out through the dining hall again, cutting through the soft scrapes of people starting to pick up their chairs again. Quiet, especially, from the Mist-nin.

"I hadn't heard Leaf did that kind of thing," Ushio, Mist's senior chuunin, said, eyes shifting between Sai and the rest of the Leaf-nin.

"We don't," Shikamaru answered, frowning. "At least not that I've ever heard before."

"Omoi went for the Commander and Kakashi-san," Karui said, golden eyes dark. "Guess we'll know soon."

"Naruto!" The dining hall door slammed open and the entire command group spilled through, Jiraiya in the lead.

"Speak of him and he appears," Sasuke murmured, and Sakura let the dry humor in his voice calm her, reassure her that it was all right, because otherwise Sasuke wouldn't sound that calm. She straightened slowly and stepped back to Naruto's side; it didn't escape her notice that several of the shinobi around them sighed with relief as she did.

Okay, so maybe she was a little more on edge than usual.

"I'm okay!" Naruto piped up from behind his human bulwark. "Sasuke saw him coming and Sakura kicked his knees out and he missed completely and everyone piled on."

Jiraiya blew out a long breath and nodded to the knot of people around Sai. "Thank you all." He frowned at the restrained and weirdly calm Sai. "Anyone have any idea why?"

"I'm afraid I probably do," Kakashi-sensei murmured, stepping through the crowd to come and crouch in front of Sai. Quietly enough that only the nearest people heard it, he asked, "Are you a member of Root?"

Sai just looked back at him, silent and blank, and Sakura frowned. She'd heard of Root, but it had been disbanded years ago. If he had been Root, though... that meant he was ANBU.

"Nearly as good as a yes," Kakashi-sensei sighed, standing, and turned to Jiraiya. "Commander. I'm afraid this is likely to get deep into matters of Konoha politics. Can we get some privacy?"

Jiraiya's mouth tightened, lines deepening on either side. After a long moment he nodded. "Very well. But if anything you find out has any bearing on this mission, I will expect you to report it to the command group." At Kakashi-sensei's nod he jerked a thumb at the door. "Take him back to the Leaf quarters, then. No one will interrupt."

 _Good,_ Sakura thought coldly.

Ino got Sai onto his feet with an efficient heave and aimed him out the door, garrote still snug. The rest of them stayed close all the way back to their own building and bent suspicious looks on the rest of Ino's team, who piled down the stairs, talking over each other to find out what had happened.

"He's a traitor," Ino said bluntly, and watched the stunned expressions on the faces of other four for a long moment before nodding, apparently satisfied. "We're going to use the inner room on the second floor. Watch the exits."

Genma-san was watching from the top of the stairs, eyes dark. He exchanged a long look with Kakashi-sensei and bowed his head wearily.

"If we're lucky, this will be the break," Kakashi-sensei answered, as if Genma-san had said something, and the other man nodded.

"Hyuuga's team has perimeter watch this shift," he said quietly. "Should I keep them away when they get back in?"

"No, send them up. We need witnesses, if this is what I think it is, and the heir to Hyuuga, the favorite grandson of the Inuzuka matriarch, and the first cousin of the Aburame heir would be hard to disappear."

Sakura swallowed her startlement at that, suddenly aware that, whatever Kakashi-sensei suspected, it must go far beyond one crazy ANBU.

Kakashi-sensei waved Sasuke and Naruto, and Shikamaru and Chouji, back against the walls of the room they brought Sai to, the one that Ino's team had been sleeping in. "The first thing you all need to understand, is that there are questions Sai will be unable to answer." He glanced at Sai, now sitting calmly in a chair with Ino behind him. "Will you show them why?"

Sai shrugged and stuck out his tongue, and Sakura pulled in a hard breath at the mark on it. "A mission seal?" That meant someone had _sent_ Sai to do this. She frowned. "Do you still have the keys to ANBU seals, Kakashi-sensei?"

"In fact, I do," he murmured. "But I don't have the key to this one."

A chill stroked down Sakura's spine. Was he implying that Sai had been suborned by outsiders? Or... by _insiders_?

Kakashi-sensei met her eyes and nodded just a fraction. "There's other information he can give, but first we need to make sure he isn't going to die in the middle of this."

Sakura bit her lip and nodded silently. Bit by bit, she and Kakashi and Ino searched Sai for poisons or death seals under Kakashi-sensei's quiet direction. Sakura's stomach felt shaky by the time they were done, and not just because it was a hard thing to do to a fellow Konoha shinobi. It was also Sai himself; they might have been handling a doll for all his response or expression.

"Last thing," Kakashi-sensei started as he closed cuffs back around Sai's hands and stood, only to look up as Hinata, Kiba, and Shino piled through the door. "Ah, good timing. Hinata, can you check Sai for any implanted devices or techniques that might cause his death?"

Kiba shut the mouth he'd already opened, eyes wide. Shino rested a hand on Hinata's shoulder for a moment before nudging Kiba back against the wall like everyone else. Hinata, after an uncertain breath, nodded. "Yes, Kakashi-san." She engaged her Byakugan and examined Sai closely for a few moments. "Nothing that would cause death," she reported steadily, "but he carries a paralyzing seal in his mouth."

"That one we knew of. Thank you." Kakashi-sensei looked around at them and sighed. "I had hoped this could be resolved without involving your generation, but it appears not. What we know for sure is that Sai attempted to stab Naruto in the dining hall this afternoon, and that he carries an irregular mission seal which will very likely prevent him from speaking about who sent him or why. We are here to find out whatever else we can." Meeting Sai's blank gaze directly, he added, "I believe I know the answers to who and why already, in any case."

Ino frowned. "Then why...?"

Kakashi leaned against another chair, arms crossed. "What if I told you that I believe Sai was assigned this mission by one of our village Elders? And that this Elder leads a proscribed group, of which Sai is a part, answering only to him and carrying out whatever secret operations he decides?"

"I would say that was speculation and hearsay," Shikamaru said quietly, from where he stood directly behind Sai. "At least, that's what I'd say if I was an Elder."

Sakura thought Kakashi smiled behind his mask, and that it probably wasn't a happy smile. "Precisely. What is not speculation is that _someone_ sent Sai to do this, someone with the ability to place that seal on him. And that the records of the Intelligence division show that, not too very long ago, there was a subdivision of ANBU called Root which was under the sole control of Shimura Danzou. Sai's membership is similarly a matter of record. And Danzou-san has, more than once, said publicly that he does not trust the Hokage to take all the measures necessary to guard the village properly. Either the Third or the Fifth."

"That's a stronger case, yeah," Shikamaru allowed, eyes fixed on Kakashi-sensei. Sakura, watching, caught a faint settling in Sai's posture and had to look down to hide a moment of realization and admiration for her teacher's deft touch. He was setting Sai up to cooperate with them, to think there was already no reason not to. "Well," Shikamaru continued, voice perfectly casual, "if Sai can't talk, maybe the things he packed can." Sakura caught his glance at her and picked it up.

"Let's see, then," she said coolly, kneeling by Sai's bedroll to sort briskly through his things. Weapons, mostly, including his drawing supplies, and... hm. She sat back on her heels, holding what looked like a picture book between her hands, watching Sai out of the corner of her eye. He didn't tense, but something changed in the set of his brows, like the tiniest flicker of a frown. She paged through the book slowly, wondering if it was some manner of code. It read in two different directions. Two different mission plans? But the center pages were blank. She frowned over that, considering. Two boys, fighting the same things from two different directions, and... well, they should meet in the middle, except that they didn't. One of the boys looked a bit like Sai.

Abruptly, she remembered the way the Mist-nin had looked at them, in the dining hall, and the things they had heard from Zabuza and Kakashi-sensei, years ago. Two boys...

"Did you know him?" she asked, turning to Sai to show him the side of the book with the other boy. Softer, she added, "Did you fight him? Is that what happened, in those blank pages?"

"That's what happened," Sai confirmed, face blank as ever. But his voice was a little tighter, now.

"Who was he?" she asked, watching him. Yes, there was definitely more tension around his eyes now.

Sai looked down at the book in her hands for a long moment and finally shrugged. "My brother."

Sakura's stomach twisted, despite every attempt at discipline and calm, and she closed her eyes as the pattern clicked together in her mind's eye. "You were trained together. Right up until the day you had to fight him. To the death." It wasn't a question. Kiba and Naruto choked, and Hinata made a distressed sound. Sakura opened her eyes and looked at Sai as steadily as she could. He looked back, expressionless. Or almost. It didn't take Shikamaru's nod to know this was something they might use as a lever, here, but the thought of using such a tragedy as a lever—again, after the way Danzou had obviously used it once—sickened her. She hoped with all her heart Kakashi-sensei had another way in mind.

On an impulse, she leaned forward and laid the book in Sai's lap. "This is yours," she said, quietly.

Slowly, his fingers wrapped around it.

"No wonder the Third outlawed it," Naruto said, low and rough.

Over the sounds of agreement, around the room, Kakashi-sensei's voice was level and calm. "The organization known as Root was officially dissolved, yes. But it was never suppressed. Remember that."

"What are you saying?" Naruto started low, but his voice was picking up volume by the syllable. "The old guy would never have let anything like that happen, not if he knew!"

A little to Sakura's surprise, it was Hinata who answered. "The kind of responsibility the Hokage has can lead people to do... things they don't like." She was twisting her fingers together, but her soft words were steady. "The Third was also the one who refused to confirm Sasuke-san in his place as the head of Uchiha. It had to be him, because the other noble clans didn't oppose it."

"The Third acted however he felt was needed to protect the village and the people in it," Kakashi-sensei agreed, quiet, almost hypnotic. "And Danzou has always said he acted for the same principle. I suspect that's why he uses that seal, hm?" He cocked his head at Sai, casual and understanding.

"It's best if our missions are sealed," Sai said, still looking down at the book. "We have done things to protect the village that would be considered questionable."

Questionable even by the standards of ANBU meant something a little more extreme than most of the others would assume, and Sakura exchanged a quick, grim look with Ino.

"So, Danzou is trying to make himself a second Hokage, is he?" Ino asked, contempt in every word. "With his very own ANBU that reports just to him. I suppose corruption and ambition are always with us."

"It can't just be that!" Sakura started up on her knees to play the opposite part, supporting Kakashi-sensei's lead. She glared at Ino, which came easily given how often they fought. "If the Third knew, then they really must be doing what's right for the village!"

"What's right?" Ino's brows and voice both went up in disbelief. "Try to remember that it's your own teammate who just nearly got killed!"

Sakura flinched back. "That... but..." She stared at Sai as if torn, and, right on cue, Kakashi came forward again, resting a hand on her shoulder as he crouched down in front of Sai.

"You can't speak of it," he said quietly. "But perhaps you can at least indicate if my guesses are right. I think Danzou probably sent you along to make sure Naruto didn't fall into Akatsuki's hands. You were to strike if he did?"

After a thoughtful moment, Sai nodded silently. Sakura bit her lip harder, which had the useful side effect of hiding her surge of exultation at this break.

"And if one of the other villages tried to take him?" Kakashi went on. Another nod answered that. "But neither of those happened. So there must be a third condition. Something to do with the Nine-tails and the seal, I imagine."

Sai nodded again, quiet calmly.

"But the seal didn't break!" Sakura leaned forward, pleadingly, resting a hand as if by accident on the book in Sai's lap, the reminder of her sympathy (a true sympathy, even if she was using it as a tool now). "The Nine-tails didn't escape, Naruto is still in control! So why...?"

"If the seal changed at all?" Kakashi-sensei asked softly. Sai smiled his alarming smile as if pleased that they'd finally gotten it and nodded again.

Sakura leaned back again, frowning. "But it's a double seal, so the Nine-tails would still be under control even if it were changed or damaged. Why give an order like that?"

Kakashi-san sighed. "Because Danzou's ideas of what will protect the village are very rigid and very strict. And not what would make good policy as a Hokage. Since the Third died, Danzou's decisions have been untempered by any larger view. The Fifth has had no proof of what he was doing, not something she could convince her whole Council with."

Until now, at least, and that made Sakura very, very happy. She was going to see that old man die for this, one way or another. The attack on her teammate had clearly been his doing, and it had come close enough to send adrenaline sizzling down her nerves every time she thought about it. And while part of her still howled to kill Sai now just to be on the safe side, a growing part was just as enraged over what had been done to _him_.

Kakashi-sensei stood silently and rested a hand on Sai's head. "Questionable things must sometimes be done, to protect what we care for," he said. "But Danzou forced you to kill what you cared for, didn't he? I suspect he did it to make you unable to care. How, then, could you possibly judge for yourself what is necessary and what isn't?"

Sai blinked up at him. "I don't need to judge. Only act."

Sakura swallowed, and reached back abruptly for Naruto and Sasuke, to reassure herself they were still there, still her anchor, her reason for fighting. To assure herself that she had something to hold her back from the pure, uncaring edge she could hear in Sai's words—the edge she remembered hearing, whispering to her soft and tempting, in Orochimaru's voice, telling her not to let herself be held back by sentiment. Someone had said that to Sai until he had believed it. Their hands closed on hers, and the three of them clung together.

"If only one person judges, and yet his judgments become the action of many, the result is madness." Kakashi-sensei slid his hand down to Sai's shoulder, gripping it tightly. "You had no way of learning this, I know, but try to listen now. That's why we have a council, to advise the Hokage. That's why the Hokage and the Elders and the division commanders and the noble clans are all involved. So that no one person can act beyond their individual strength without convincing others that they are right. Danzou never convinced you. He only shaped and conditioned you. That's anathema to what our village is. Even ANBU leaves its operatives their own will and judgment." Kakashi-sensei's voice turned dark and cold for a moment. "For breaking that faith with all of you, I will bring him down."

Sai had a faint frown now. A puzzled one. "I don't understand."

Sakura shuddered. Of course he didn't. Having to kill his own brother, a brother he'd probably loved... she would have done her best to turn off her heart, too!

A brother he'd probably loved...

Sakura straightened, assumptions suddenly shifting. "Sai," she said, husky. "That book. What did you mean to draw in the middle? It couldn't have been the two of you fighting each other. You couldn't have known that was coming." She felt Sasuke shiver against her, and wrapped her arm around him.

Sai blinked slowly. "I... don't remember." He looked down at the book, distant and curious.

"Maybe," Naruto had to stop and clear his throat to get the roughness out of his voice, "maybe you were going to draw the two of you fighting together. Instead of against each other. I mean, if he was your brother and you grew up training together."

Sasuke flinched and Sakura tugged him into the middle, so she and Naruto could both hold him. When she looked back at Sai, he was staring at the book with more expression than she'd seen yet—something dark and hurt, and still a little wondering. "Together," he murmured. "That was... yes. I wanted to give it to him, once we both passed our final trials for fieldwork."

Hinata made a quick, pained sound, muffled behind her clasped hands; her team had closed in around her, too.

"For him and for you," Kakashi-sensei said, very soft and cold as ice, "I will bring Danzou down. Fight for the village your brother would have wanted to live in, if you continue to fight."

Sai actually seemed comforted by that deadly tone and lowered his eyes. "Yes, Kakashi-senpai," he said, meekly.

Sakura watched Kakashi-sensei take a long breath. "This mission has failed," he continued, more briskly. "Will you attempt to keep carrying it out, if you're released?"

Sai shook his head. "I wasn't told to complete it at all costs, and I could only complete it at the cost of my life, now."

Kakashi-sensei nodded to Ino, who unwound her garrote and turned at once to her team, to be gathered into Chouji's arms while Shikamaru watched Kakashi-sensei with dark eyes. Kakashi-sensei undid the cuffs and stood back with a sigh. "I don't think there's anything that needs to be reported to our mission's command. But when Tsunade-sama gets here, I imagine she'll want to hear it all. It may alter how we continue this mission, too. Everyone get as much rest as you can." He swept a stern eye around the room. "Don't speak of this with anyone else."

A murmur of agreement went around the room, and Sakura was very glad to be released. She wanted their own room, and her team with her, and to sit and shake for a while. She'd taken part in a few interrogations, but never of someone from her own village before! "Come on," she whispered to Sasuke and Naruto, tugging Naruto along when he looked back at Sai, hesitating. "Let Kakashi-sensei take care of it for now."

Naruto nodded reluctantly, and followed, and was perfectly willing to wrap her and Sasuke up and fuss over them for a while. Sakura huddled with Sasuke, on their piled bedrolls, and thought about this comfort that was so readily hers, and thought about Sai and his brother, and put her head down on Naruto's shoulder while she cried.

* * *

Kakashi knew his voice was too hard, as he finished his report to Tsunade. Too serious. Too demanding. But he'd felt like he had fire under his skin for a day and a night, now, waiting for her to arrive so he could give her the proof, finally, of Danzou's actions. The proof that was sitting in his room across the valley, waiting with inhuman calm, exactly like a weapon sitting in its rack.

"Send me home," he finished, harsh. "Send me home with this, and assign me to eliminate him. All of ANBU will understand why it was me, and that he died by the same sword he lived by."

Tsunade didn't look up from her hands, clasped on the black oval table of the command HQ room. "And then how am I different from him, Kakashi?"

He slashed his hand across the words, violently. "You don't ask that about Akatsuki! How is what Danzou's done any less of an attack on the village?"

Her hands tightened. "And if I have one of my Council killed out of hand, how will the village feel any safer for that?!" She finally looked up, mouth sick and set in a pale face. "No. It will be in Council, with a public record. Danzou will be heard. He's mad enough to take pride in what he's done, if it comes to that."

"Playing publicity games with your people's lives, Tsunade-hime?" Kakashi asked very softly.

She stood up slowly, and for a breath he wondered if he'd let fury drive him too far. But when she came to him she only closed her hands on his shoulders, strong and steady. "Their lives were already played with. All we can do is try to set them straight again and hope. I know it hurts you," she whispered. "I know you want to do something now to _fix_ it. I _know_. But we have to care for everyone, as best we can, and that's never as easy as killing off the threat. Never."

He bent his head, shuddering under the weight of that. "Wasn't there anyone else you could have chosen?" he asked, very close to pleading.

She lifted a hand to touch his cheek. "It's because of this that I chose you," she told him, terribly gentle. "Because you love them. Because it hurts. I'm sorry."

There would be a day, Kakashi saw with abrupt clarity, when he would have to do this to Naruto. And that thought felt so much like a dagger under his ribs that he reached out and pulled Tsunade close, holding her tight, the way he would one of his own team. He'd been ANBU, and he understood cruel necessity, but she was a healer; it had to be half killing her to do this to him. "I'll survive," he assured her, low and rough. "And I won't kill Danzou until you say I can. Well. Not unless he attacks first."

She snorted against his chest, half laughter and half her usual annoyance. "Oh, that's reassuring." She pushed him away and reached up to muss his hair, grinning at his elaborate indignation, and they both eased away from the pain of the moment. "Well, I suppose the first thing I need to do is take a look at Naruto's seal and see what my idiot student has gone and done this time."

As if his name had summoned him, or, far more likely, as if Naruto's patience had finally run out, Naruto himself barged through the door before the last word was all the way out of her mouth.

"Tsunade-baachan! You have to help me heal the Nine-tails!" he declared.

Tsunade stared at him for a long moment before pointing to a chair. "Sit." When Naruto had thumped down into the chair with bad grace, she hitched a hip up onto the table and crossed her arms. "Now. Try that again, starting at the beginning this time." Kakashi faded back to lean against the wall and watch.

Naruto propped his elbows aggressively on the table. "Okay, so. When my dad sealed the Nine-tails into me, he also cut away half the fox's chakra. His yin chakra. And he's _really_ pissed off about it," here Naruto waved his arms widely as if to indicate the size of the temper in question, "and I don't blame him! And it was the Ten Stems Twelve Branches seal, so I know we can't get his chakra _back_ , but we can heal him can't we? Help him regenerate it?"

Tsunade opened and closed her mouth twice before she managed to say, "Okay, one," she held up a finger, "yes it is sometimes possible to heal a wound to chakra, especially if the body is still intact. I have no idea how that would be complicated by working on an elemental spirit who doesn't have his own body right this moment. But before that there is two," another finger, with some emphasis, "which is, what the hell are you thinking, trying to strengthen a spirit that will take you over and burn you out if it gets much stronger?!" She planted her fist on her hip and glared at him.

He glared right back. "He won't do that! We have a deal." He crossed his arms stubbornly, chin jutted out.

"A little more beginning might have been helpful," Kakashi put in before they could get any deeper into their deadlock. "Naruto appears to have reached a truce, and possibly even a friendship with the Nine-tails."

Naruto winced as if at a sudden noise and wiggled a finger in one ear. "Thanks, Kakashi-sensei. That was loud. He says he's totally not friends with some idiot human kit."

"Rather like Naruto's relationship with Sasuke, really," Kakashi added blandly, with just a tiny bit of malice aforethought. Naruto and his new friend had been the cause of enough stress this week, he felt he deserved the indulgence.

Naruto glowered at him, though the corners of his mouth were twitching. "Kakashi-sensei, that wasn't very nice. You made him howl."

Kakashi spread his hands innocently.

"Let me get this straight," Tsunade said, a little muffled past the hand pinching the bridge of her nose. "The scourge of our village, the terror of many a person's nightmares, the most appallingly powerful of all the tailed beasts... and Naruto has made _buddies_ with it." She slid back down into her chair and buried her face in her hands. "I'm not even surprised, you know." She heaved in a deep breath and looked up to fix an eye on Naruto. "And you want to heal your friend."

"It's the right thing to do," Naruto insisted. "He didn't choose to attack us. He got injured in a fight that wasn't his fault, and we were the ones who did it!"

"There were a lot of people injured in that fight, and we can't fix all of them either, Naruto," she told him quietly.

Naruto looked back at her, not angry now but very serious, and answered just as quietly. "Sensei."

That was all he said, but everything was in that one word. Her responsibility as the one who had taught him to heal as well as fight. His belief in the principles she'd given him. His faith that she would stand by those principles now and do the right thing. Kakashi was impressed; Naruto truly had matured lately, and he had to wonder how much the demon fox might be responsible for that.

Tsunade locked eyes with her student for a long moment. Finally she folded her hands and spoke soft and level. "Think about this, and answer me truthfully. If the Nine-tails is healed, can you still remain yourself?"

Naruto got the inward look he'd developed recently, the one Kakashi was starting to suspect indicated a conversation with his resident spirit. "No," he murmured finally, "no, you're right. Okay." He looked up at Tsunade. "I'll still be me. Yes. We really do have a deal, and he's, um, kind of pissed off that everyone seems to be doubting his word. But you know... I'm not exactly the me I was before I graduated. Or before I was teamed with Sasuke and Sakura. Or before you taught me. It'll be like that. He and I can talk, now. We really are getting to be friends." He paused and added pointedly, glancing just a little aside, "No matter how much he growls and yells about insolent mortal spawn with no respect."

Kakashi straightened up against the wall abruptly, catching something he hadn't before. "Naruto," he said, cautious, "when you talk about your deal with the Nine-tails... do you mean that the two of you have a _contract_ now?"

Naruto blinked, and paused, head cocked. "He says," he reported a bit wryly, "that he's not some damn animal summons, but that the essential principle is not entirely dissimilar, though I shouldn't go getting a swelled head about it."

Kakashi had to admit, through a bit of a daze, that Naruto's verbatim quotes of the Nine-tails really did sound a bit like a much older and even more irritable Sasuke.

"It's a promise between us," Naruto added, smiling. "We'll both keep it. Which means," he added, looking pugnaciously at Tsunade again, "that I'm going to heal him!"

Tsunade looked just as shocked as Kakashi felt. "If it's a contract..." she murmured, and trailed off. After a moment, though she shook herself and straightened. "If it's a contract, of course you have to abide by it." She nodded just over Naruto's shoulder, the same directly he glanced when talking to the Nine-tails. "I apologize for misunderstanding the weight of this bond."

Naruto cocked his head again and then turned red. "I, um. I think maybe I won't say what he just said? Especially the part about your grandmother. Eheh." He rubbed the back of his head. "He, um, well in general he says thanks."

Tsunade glowered and muttered something under her breath. "All right, fine. But this is going to have to wait, because I can't stay here as long as the research for this would take. I have to get Sai back to the village and deal with Danzou."

"Then we'll come home now and I can get started while you take care of that," Naruto said firmly.

"You are not coming out of this mission's protection," Tsunade snapped.

"They already found us, though!" Naruto protested. "And it's an island, we're sitting ducks!"

"Naruto!" They were leaning over the table, nearly nose to nose, when someone cleared his throat.

"If we aren't intruding on the debriefing, Hokage," Darui said, leaning in the doorway, "the mission command team actually has some thoughts about that."

Tsunade threw herself back in her chair. "Yes, everyone might as well add their bright ideas," she said a bit sourly.

Kakashi took it as a comment on the general temperament of village leaders that everyone filed in without minding this in the least.

"Naruto makes a reasonable point," Darui started, when everyone was seated around the great oval table with Naruto scowling beside Tsunade. "The greatest strength of the Island Turtle, for the purposes of this mission, was concealment. If that's breached, and it seems likely it was, then it might be better to surround our hosts with their own people again while we search for Madara. The strength of Akatsuki is now considerably reduced, after all."

"We've seen better cooperation here than I would have imagined," Yuzuki put in, "and I truly believe that will have benefits for a long time to come. But each village always knows any of the others may be an opponent at any time. Everyone feels more secure in their own place. That is also an advantage."

Tsunade nodded slowly. "It's true that two Akatsuki teams have been removed since this mission started. Madara and perhaps one supporter are all that's left. I suppose there's a good case to be made for home ground advantage, now." She folded her hands under her chin. "Would you all have this mission separate again, then?"

"Sand is the ally of Leaf," Temari said, chin lifted. "We will send support to your village, to defend Naruto, if you'll have it."

Tsunade smiled warmly and Naruto's scowl was slipping away, replaced by a tiny grin. "That will be welcome."

"I believe the Mizukage would be willing to send the Swordsmen to aid both Leaf and Cloud," Choujuurou put in, lifting his hand a bit shyly.

"I have no idea whether my father will permit it, or the Raikage accept it for that matter," Kitsuchi said a bit dryly, "but I will put forward the idea of sending Rock's aid to Cloud, as well. Many of our people have been favorably impressed with B-san, on this mission."

Tomita of Sound stirred, looking up from his folded hands. "When Orochimaru died, we took some of his network intact. Sound will search for word of Madara among the smaller countries."

Tsunade was just about glowing. "Thank you," she said, looking around the table and spreading her hands as if to encompass them all. "Thank you all. I am honored by your willingness to aid us in this time, and I'm sure the Raikage will be as well." She pursed her lips thoughtfully and added, "Once he's done shouting, of course." She smiled at them again, edged and bloodthirsty now. "Together, we _will_ put an end to Madara."

A soft rumble of agreement ran around the room. It was heartening, and yet, for Kakashi, also frightening. He saw how she did this, how she moved them, and he knew it was because she offered them her own trust. Her own heart. She was Naruto's teacher, no question. Someday, he would need to do this too, and the thought was both tempting and terrifying, because he knew that he could. If he dared.

Someday wasn't yet, though, and he turned his thoughts to ordering and withdrawing the Leaf contingent. She was still his Hokage, one of the Legendary Three, the leader and shield of Konoha. There was comfort in that, even as they prepared to heal one of Konoha's worst nightmares and face down another long thought dead and gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon says that Shin died of disease before he and Sai fought, but that isn't nearly as narratively useful. Since the poor schmuck's dead in any case, I'm going to say he and Sai were, in fact, set against each other as planned. It makes Sai's complete asocial feralness that much more believable.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke attends his first Council, called to deal with Danzou's actions, while Naruto and Sakura figure out how to heal the Nine-tails. That second turns out to have risks none of them quite realized before-hand.

Sakura leaned on the rail of the ship as they swung away from the Island Turtle and turned toward the coast of the Fire Country. It had been a curious experience, working with so many shinobi from so many different nations. It had tugged at her memories of working in Sound, undercover, except that no one had pretended any allegiance but their true one.

Except for Sai.

She leaned down to rest her chin on her folded arms, staring over the choppy waves, growing into swells as they drew away from the Turtle. She was pretty sure that she'd been given to Miuhara as his mentee because he was ANBU, and her mission to Orochimaru had been one that ANBU would normally have handled—as had a handful of others since. But she'd never asked, because you didn't. Even if you suspected, even if you were pretty sure you knew, you didn't ask. ANBU needed that bit of uncertainty and ambiguity, even in their home village, to do their work and still come home from it.

It must have been so easy to hide yet another secret group inside that.

And there'd been a lot of orphans after the Nine-tails' attack. How easy would it be, in the confusion after that, to take in a handful, to raise them and train them.

And kill half of them. It made her shake every time she thought about it, thought about what Danzou had done, made her vision haze with red.

"Still wound up from the attack on Naruto?"

Sakura started a little, straightening to find Temari beside her. "Temari-san."

The other woman smiled a bit crookedly. "It's not surprising if you're still angry, you know. He tried to kill your teammate. Your family, as close as the three of you are. You'll be angry for a while."

Sakura scrubbed her hands over her face, trying not to shudder; if anyone would know that, Temari would. "I know. I'm... trying to save it up for the people who are really responsible." She snorted softly. "There's going to be a lot of anger to go around, on this one, for a lot of reasons." Enough that it was affecting her— _impairing_ her—she suddenly realized, feeling the wound-to-snapping tension in her shoulders. Enough, obviously, that outsiders could see it. Which was the other thing Temari was telling her. Shit. She looked up at Temari with a sigh. "Thanks."

Temari only nodded quietly and turned her head to look out over the gray-green texture of the water. "I owe Naruto," she murmured. "My teams from Sand will protect him like our own."

Every little bit helped, and Temari was very strong. Sakura reminded herself of that, and took a breath, and acknowledged that she was enraged, furious enough to spit nails, ready to slice Danzou open like a piece of fruit. She felt and accepted that, and then she set it aside, the way Miuhara had taught her to. There was work to do. Anger might strengthen her, but it must not blind her. She would do what was necessary with cool judgment, and spit on the corpse later. "Thank you, Temari-san," she said quietly, feeling her shoulders finally fall. "That does help."

"Good. Well, then." Temari glanced at her sidelong with a tiny smile. "I hear you pulled out something kind of special during the fight on the Island. Is it something you can tell me about?"

Sakura laughed. "Did Fuunotora-san put you up to asking?" The older kunoichi had spent years trying to winkle the details of her seal out of her.

"She might have mentioned something in passing." Temari turned, leaning back against the rail on her elbows with a grin that showed her teeth.

Sakura hesitated, actually considering it. They were allied with Sand. Naruto and Gaara were friends; she couldn't see that changing. But every iota of her Intelligence training was screaming at her that one did _not_ share that kind of information with another nation's shinobi, be they ever so allied. In the end she sighed. "Maybe someday. I'd like that."

Temari considered her for a long moment and finally nodded, firm. "We'll work on it, then. It's what Gaara wants too; the more I see, the more I approve." And then she straightened, tilting her chin to gesture past Sakura's shoulder. "Looks like your team is here. Time for me to go and write more dispatches for home, and you to remember what you need to do with that anger of yours." She smiled faintly, pushing up from the rail. "It is your team that's always talking about protecting what's precious to you, isn't it? Everything that's precious to you?" She saluted Sakura lazily and strolled away down the deck.

"What did Temari-san want?" Naruto asked, looking after her curiously as he and Sasuke leaned against the rail beside her.

"To remind me that we have help, and to deal properly with being really fucking pissed off," Sakura admitted ruefully. "Good thing, really, otherwise I might have tried to slice open Danzou's belly with my nails as soon as we got back." Which would relieve her feelings a lot but wouldn't necessarily protect Naruto very much, and would definitely upset the village. A village that was also precious to her, no matter how stupid some members of it sometimes were.

"Yes," Sasuke murmured, "we'll have to wait until he's been officially denounced to do that, so no one complains. And until we have a little free time to devote to it." They smiled at each other, complicit and bloodthirsty. Naruto turned rather red, the way he always did when someone else got protective of him, and Sakura threw an arm around his shoulders. She really did love both of them.

"So we're about to be busy. One demon fox to heal. One traitor to uncover. One madman to prepare for." She nodded firmly. "Let's do it."

She held up both hands, and Naruto laughed and did the same, and they both stared at Sasuke expectantly until he sighed and held up his as well.

"Team Seven, go!" Naruto declared, and they smacked palms, all three at once.

Sakura smiled, true and light for the first time in days. They would make this happen.

* * *

Sasuke didn't want to be sitting where he was. It was a nice room, wide and airy with comfortable chairs of sleek wood set around a polished ring of table. He didn't even have anything against most of the company. He wasn't fond of Hyuuga Hiashi, but Hinata was at his side looking alert instead of crushed; Akimichi Chouza had given him a solemn and welcoming nod; and Aburame Midori had murmured, as she passed behind his chair, that it was good to have all four clans present again. Certainly his encounters with Nara Shikaku, the Jounin Commander, had been encouraging; the man seemed level-headed and just as intelligent as his son. And Sasuke was fairly sure that the ANBU Commander was the same man who had let him and Naruto into the Intelligence complex once or twice to pick up Sakura when she'd had a hard debriefing. Tsunade, with Kakashi-sensei standing in attendance behind her shoulder, was almost comforting; her temper was, if anything, worse than Naruto's, and he'd learned to trust that kind of straightforwardness. He didn't like how any of the three Elders looked at him, but he'd known for a while that that was the faction who had been against him since the massacre and would likely stay that way for years, no matter what happened today.

Under other circumstances, he might have enjoyed being here, his first Council as the acknowledged head of Uchiha. But he didn't want to be here today, looking at that smug bastard Danzou across the table. He wanted to be with his team, helping Sakura and Naruto research something it was already clear would be a dangerous procedure. And making sure no one made _another_ try at Naruto.

If there was one thing he'd learned as a child, though, it was his duty as a son of Uchiha, so here he was. Not killing Danzou even a little, either; he hoped everyone appreciated his restraint.

"We are here," Tsunade said, hands folded on the sleek wood in front of her, "to consider the actions of Shimura Danzou. You have all seen the report of Sai's attack on Uzumaki Naruto, and what was learned from him. You have seen the lists of Root members and missions we have been able to confirm. I will hear what the Council has to say."

The ANBU Commander clasped his hands under the chin of his cat mask. "ANBU is divided," he said quietly. "It's true that Root members are skilled and have a high success rate. And we all understand the need for what we do. But if we can't trust our assigned teammates, if any of them might have secret orders... it will tear all our working teams apart and imperil our missions themselves."

"Divided loyalties are something the rest of us already had to deal with," Aburame Midori pointed out dryly. "I don't see a great deal of difference between Torune being ANBU and being Root. He is divided in his loyalty to his clan already, and he chose that himself."

"He chose that, yes." Shikaku frowned darkly across the table at Danzou. "I'm considerably more disturbed by the handful of younger members, who seem to have been drawn from the orphans of the village and then set against each other in deadly trials. As if we were Hidden Mist! Where's the excuse for that?"

"That was done before the Third proscribed Root," Danzou answered, quite calm.

"That was _why_ the Third proscribed Root," Tsunade cut back. "That much is clear, now. 'Actions Hidden Leaf and the true Will of Fire could never condone' indeed."

The lines around Danzou's eye tightened. "I acted always for the good of the village."

"And for your own," Sasuke drawled, folding his hands over his stomach as he leaned back, remembering the things Kakashi-sensei had said and implied during Sai's interrogation. "You set yourself up with the power of Hokage, without even any pesky Elders to restrain you, and you didn't want to give that up."

Danzou drew himself up. "I would have the Council note that Uchiha Sasuke is biased particularly against me because Root's last mission, of unfortunate necessity, targeted his friend."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. Now he understood what his father had said to his mother, one night over dinner: that meetings of the full Council were just another kind of combat, where you had to keep your eyes activated for the openings. What counter would strike through the defense of bias... ah! It was what Kakashi-sensei had once told him. "As it should be," he returned, as matter-of-fact as he could. "That's why we fight, every one of us: for friends, clan, loved ones." He curled his lip. "No one gives their life this way for an abstract. 'The good of the village.'" He snorted with contempt. "No human fights with all their strength for that." And there, there it was, the opening he'd felt, and he glared at Danzou. "You had to take away their humanity before they'd do that, didn't you? So they'd fight for whatever _you_ told them the good of the village was."

Danzou's mouth thinned, and Sasuke knew he'd connected.

Chouza leaned his elbows on the table, vest straps creaking over his shoulders. "You mentioned Root's last mission. You say it was necessary, Danzou, but I don't see why. The Uzumaki boy had not lost control of the Nine-tails; quite the contrary, from what I hear."

"And you believe we should have risked it?" Danzou asked, with every appearance of injured dignity. "We have all seen what happens when the demon escapes. You were there that night, Chouza!"

Every older face at the table tightened, and Sasuke had to stifle a growl; Danzou was skilled at this. Risk, risk, what would counter... hm. He smiled faintly and leaned an elbow on his chair arm. "So, you believe we should all trust your assessment of the risk?" he asked.

"The Elders are appointed so that their experience may serve the village," Danzou answered, smooth and calm again.

"And your experience told you that the Nine-tails was too great a danger to risk the chance of it breaking free," Sasuke murmured. "I see." He waited one silent beat and inquired casually, "So, you were in contact with the mission after all?"

Danzou frowned. "Of course not. That would endanger Leaf shinobi unnecessarily." There were tiny nods and judicious looks around the table, and Sasuke had to work very hard not to let his smile spread. He had him!

"Ah? But if you weren't in contact, how could you possibly judge the danger?" He frowned. "Are you telling us that you gave non-discretionary orders _before a mission even began_ and made no provision to alter them based on what actually happened?" As the listeners stilled, he added, very softly, "Are you telling us that you let your fear dictate your orders?"

"No!" Danzou was half standing, glaring at Sasuke.

"Ah." Now Sasuke smiled, holding Danzou's gaze. "So, it was only your complete arrogance, that gave those orders blind and never once thought that you might be wrong, or even that the situation might change." He swept his eyes around the table. "I think everyone who's ever worked in the field may have some thoughts about the kind of experience and judgment that indicates."

Even Midori was frowning now, and Sasuke sat back. He was breathing light and fast, and his legs were actually trembling with the urge to stand, to strike, to do _something_. He'd have preferred a field mission to this! He'd never spoken during clan meetings; he'd been the second son and it hadn't been his place. He'd only listened. He'd had no idea it was this hard! Kakashi-sensei, standing quiet guard behind Tsunade, caught his eye for an instant and nodded just a fraction. Sasuke took a slow breath, steadying himself on that silent assurance that he was doing all right so far.

"There was indeed judgment lacking there," Hiashi agreed, and frowned at Danzou. "More than that, you have acted entirely alone. You have not consulted the Hokage or the other Elders."

"I have access to all intelligence materials." Danzou looked a bit ruffled now.

"Unauthorized access," Tsunade-san pointed out coolly. "The Third, at the risk of repeating myself, proscribed Root. You still have that access only because you suborned members of the Intelligence division to your personal use."

"Personal use, yes." Hiashi's glance at Danzou was also cool. "We have a Council for a good reason. And while the noble clans are not often involved in the orders the Hokage gives to ANBU, the Elders are. Even the leader of our village does not act unrestrained. But you have."

"We might well say that Danzou has been restrained, or at least guided, by his dedication to the good of the village," Mitokado put in, looking sternly over the rims of his glasses at Hiashi.

"Should the Council take note the the Hokage's first councilors have a bias in favor of Danzou?" Shikaku murmured dryly, brow raised. A faint gust of laughter ran around the table, stealing the edge from Mitokado's defense, and Sasuke made a note of the tactic to himself.

"He has been guided, but he has not been restrained," Hiashi said firmly. "This is unacceptable."

"Then the answer would seem to be to revive Root as an accepted arm of the village," Utatane suggested, frail fingers laced in front of her, spine straight. "That will bring Danzou back into the stream of decisions reached by, at the least, the Hokage and her first councilors"

"Making it three against one, hm?" Tsunade looked very sour, and Sasuke had to wonder just how much friction there was between her and those two Elders.

The rest of the table was looking alarmingly thoughtful, though. Sasuke sighed to himself; he'd have to attack first this time, and hope he could defend himself as he went. "The question of whether Danzou's guiding principles are acceptable remains unanswered," he pointed out. "So far, it's merely been evaded."

After a long, silent moment, Shikaku stirred. "I am not pleased with Danzou's decisions. They've been too extreme."

"If Root is accepted as a hand of the Council, even if it remains proscribed to outside eyes, that problem will be alleviated," Utatane argued.

Chouza tilted his head at Tsunade. "The Hokage appears to feel differently. It seems that you and Mitokado are already sufficient voices for direct action."

"Are you displeased with the outcome?" Mitokado snapped. "The village has been kept safe and made strong!"

"The village was almost fatally weakened by his actions!" Sasuke snapped back, and in the silence that followed tried to catch up to his own thoughts. He was right, he knew he was, because Naruto... ah. Yes, of course.

He spread his hands on the glossy wood in front of him and glared at Danzou. "You would have killed our host for loosening the Nine-tails containment. You still would, if you could convince us!"

"Of course I would," Danzou answered calmly. "It is a threat, and must be contained as strongly as possible. If the Uzumaki boy cannot keep it bound, then it must be killed. I regret that he must die with it, but that is the nature of the Sacrifices."

"Contained, you say," Sasuke returned, quiet now, seeing the moves he needed unrolling in front of him. "Contained and doubly bound, that's how you would keep the Nine-tails?" At Danzou's solemn nod, he showed his teeth. "You would have us be weaker than enemy villages? I have to wonder about your precious dedication to Konoha. You would weaken us against Hidden Cloud! Who betrays the village, then?"

"What do you mean?" Mitokado demanded, frowning at him. Sasuke leaned back.

"Cloud's hosts, in this generation, are known to be the strongest, the ones best able to manage their beasts and the ones who can gain the most of their power to fight with. That is done, not by binding the beast completely, but by holding it lightly contained and reaching an accommodation with it." He paused to let that sink in and struck. "Naruto has done this, and that's the only reason we won against Nagato and Konan of Akatsuki. We have a host as strong as Cloud's now!" He lifted a hand to point across the table at Danzou. "And his judgment would have stolen that strength from us and left Cloud the only hidden village with a host. What do you think would have happened then?" He flicked a meaningful glance at Hiashi and Hinata.

"No one knew this at the time," Utatane started, only to be cut off by Midori.

"That is the point Uchiha-kun is making, I believe. Danzou did not know, and yet he took it upon himself to act." She gave Utatane and Mitokado a keen look. "And you would not have stopped him, would you?" The two first councilors were silent at that.

"Very well." Tsunade straightened, lifting her head, and every eye in the room went to her. "The Council has debated this issue, and I have heard your words on it. My judgment is that Root must be truly disbanded. The conditioning of the members will be undone as far as possible, and if there are keys to release it, those must be surrendered. Further, Shimura Danzou has demonstrated a lack of trustworthiness that I cannot accept." She met the eyes of each person in turn. "If he meant to place Root in the service of the village, why was I told nothing of it, when I became Hokage? Why did he continue to operate on no authority but his own? That is not the act of a man who seeks to _serve_ anything at all. I say that Shimura Danzou must be stripped of his office as an Elder of Konoha. What does my Council say?"

"Agreed," Shikaku said promptly.

"Agreed," Hiashi murmured.

"Agreed." Chouza nodded firmly.

"We will need to address the fate of Root members further, and how they can be returned to duty," the ANBU commander said quietly. "But that will not require the full Council. For the matter of Danzou: Agreed."

Midori sat back with an air of satisfaction, and Sasuke remembered her first words, that a son of her clan was a Root member. "Agreed."

"Agreed," Sasuke murmured, nearly holding his breath as everyone looked at the other two Elders.

Utatane's mouth was tight. "There will need to be another Elder appointed, then. If you are concerned that no one person shape policy too much, then let your first councilors approve the appointment."

Tsunade's eyes flashed, but after a scowling moment she nodded sharply. Sasuke wondered if it was his imagination that a corner of her mouth flickered upward for just an instant.

Utatane sighed. "Agreed."

Mitokado was frowning ferociously, but after a taut moment he sat back, not looking at anyone. "Very well," he said, low.

Sasuke didn't think for one moment that he imagined the flash of rage on Danzou's face before the old man stood from the table. "If that is the will of the Council, very well." He bowed shallowly to them and whirled around to stalk from the room.

Sasuke let out his breath, feeling his muscles trembling with the tension of this new form of combat. He hoped it wouldn't always be this bad. Everyone was stretching and sighing as they rose, though, and he had a bad feeling that it got to everyone this way.

Great.

He pried himself up out of his chair and tried to discreetly shake out his legs only to find Aburame Midori looking at him with a faintly amused curve to her lips. She patted his arm as she passed. "Not a bad first appearance."

"Thank you," Sasuke managed past gritted teeth.

When he emerged from the room, the last one so he could walk with one hand on the wall to prop him up in decent privacy, Tsunade and Kakashi were lingering. Faint smile-lines creased the corner of Kakashi-sensei's eye and he rested a steadying hand on Sasuke's shoulder. "Good work."

"I need to practice this," Sasuke answered, even though his teacher's approval warmed him.

"Ask Shikamaru," Kakashi-sensei advised.

"You might also speak with Hinata." Tsunade leaned against the wall, arms crossed, with a crooked smile. "She's learning this, too, and I suspect the two of you will be allies in Council, when she takes over."

Sasuke took a deep breath and let it out. He had a plan for training. That helped. "Thanks."

Despite that affirmation, he was still very glad to get back through the falling dusk to his own house, and even more pleased to find people there and the lights on. Normally, he might feel called on to needle his teammates about spending more time at his house than they did at their own apartments, but tonight he was glad for the company waiting.

Naruto was sitting cross-legged at the low, round table in the living room with books and scrolls spread out around him and his fingers buried in his hair as he read. As Sasuke came in he was groaning, "How can we power this _twice_? Fuck, maybe we should just summon some demons or something."

Sasuke blinked. Demons?

Sakura stuck her head through the doors from the kitchen, half-full bowl of rice in one hand. "I don't think we want to do this by sacrifice; I mean technically the Nine-tails is a demon and I don't think he'd like that." She spotted Sasuke through the wide entry hall, kicking his sandals off in the genkan, and eyed him for a long moment. "You look wrung out. Sit down and I'll dish up some food for you, too." She vanished back into the kitchen with a grin over her shoulder. "It's your rice, after all."

Naruto looked around and smiled, just a little wan. "Hey."

Sasuke trudged over to the table, slumping down half over it. "You look about like I feel."

Naruto reached over to rub the back of his neck. "Was it bad?"

"Well, Danzou is booted off the Council and Root is really, seriously disbanded this time. Supposing that can be done. So there's definitely progress." He sighed as Naruto's fingers found a knot.

"And it was a pain in the ass to get there," Naruto guessed, and made a face. "When I'm Hokage, I'm gonna fire all the Elders."

"Maybe they'll die off before then," Sasuke muttered, half serious.

"No revolutions at the dinner table," Sakura declared, dumping bowls of rice and pickles in front of both of them as she settled down with her own.

"Yeah, save 'em for dessert." Sasuke levered himself back upright and picked up his bowl. "So how's the research coming?"

Naruto glared at his scrolls and growled around a mouthful of rice.

"We know approximately what has to happen," Sakura supplied. "The part we're stuck on is how to actually do it."

Sasuke made an inquiring sound, scooping up some more pickles.

"There's two parts to it," Naruto said, swallowing. "For one, we need to give the Nine-tails a _huge_ " he waved his chopsticks demonstratively, "transfusion of yin chakra. But in order for it to take hold properly, first we have to deal with his scar."

Sasuke frowned. "The severing left a scar? Even though there wasn't a specific physical counterpart?"

"That's the hardest part." Naruto propped an elbow on the table, frowning. "It _wasn't_ a specific 'part' of his chakra. It was a little bit of all of it. So the scar is... well, it's everywhere."

Sasuke made a thoughtful sound, even as he absently batted Naruto's elbow off the table. "I can see that would be a hard one, yeah."

"We need to soften or dissolve it," Sakura said, leaning back on one hand with a sigh, pushing her feathery hair back with the other. "And that will take almost as much power as the transfusion. I can probably supply the second part, and Tsunade-sama says she can transform it into yin chakra. But I don't quite have the endurance to pull up that volume of power twice. So what are we going to do for the first part?"

Sasuke swallowed his last bite staring at the wall as he thought. Slowly he said, "You know. Jiraiya also uses nature energy sometimes."

Naruto sat up straight. "Jiraiya!" His face was bright and excited, weariness forgotten.

"That's right, I completely forgot! Orochimaru even mentioned that, once!" Sakura's eyes gleamed. "He should be back from escorting Konan and Nagato home soon."

"Yes!" Naruto punched the air and snatched up a pencil and paper, sweeping their bowls out of the way to scribble diagrams across it, tip of his tongue sticking out one corner of his mouth in his concentration.

Sasuke looked up at Sakura from the floor where he'd dived to catch the bowls, and they grinned at each other. "Maybe, when we're done, I'll ask him if he can teach me any of his sage techniques, too," she said, reaching over to relieve him of one bowl. "I remember hearing he has some really interesting ones, and if Madara comes for us we can use the edge."

"He's a good teacher," Sasuke admitted, "as long as you can keep his eyes where they're supposed to be."

"Yeah." She grinned. "Tsunade-sama has had a few things to say about that, now and then. I think she's really glad he's back with the village, though."

* * *

"You're back. _Good_."

Jiraiya paused just inside the door, and Tsunade wondered if she should have tried to sound less fervent. She might have just warned him what was coming. Oh well.

"Sit," she ordered, pointing at a chair with one hand and sealing paperwork with the other. Jiraiya sat, eyeing her warily. "So, how did it go? Are they back safe?"

Jiraiya cleared his throat. "Rather safer than I expected, really." That made Tsunade look up, brows raised and he shrugged, looking a bit bemused. "Hanzou... well, he's made Konan his successor."

Tsunade blinked at that. "His..." Her eyes widened. "He made her the next _Master of Ame_?"

Jiraiya waved his hands helplessly. "You know how he is, when he decides he likes someone's fighting spirit."

Tsunade buried her face in her hands. After a moment, she started laughing. "Master of the Rain! An S-rank criminal! One of _Akatsuki_!" She laughed herself breathless and finally leaned back, wiping her eyes. "Oh, I can hear the other villages howling already. The old bastard probably did it just for that."

"Not _just_ for that," Jiraiya said, a little reproving. "Konan is a powerful shinobi, and she cares deeply for her village. I think, now she's come home properly again, we'll be able to work with her."

"Mm." Tsunade folded her arms, considering what she knew of that pair. "And Nagato?"

Jiraiya sighed, straight shoulders slumping just a fraction. "He... will take longer to recover. Part of Konan's bargain with Hanzou was complete amnesty for Nagato as long as he stays out of village politics until Hanzou's dead."

"Wise of them both, perhaps." It would give Nagato time to get himself together, after all, and give Konan time to stand on her own and let the village see her doing it. Tsunade wondered whether Konan had understood all that; it was a given that Hanzou had, of course. "Well, we'll see. In the meantime, and speaking of village governance," she pointed a finger at Jiraiya, "we finally kicked Danzou out. So you're going to replace him as Elder as soon as I can get those other two old goats to agree; shouldn't take too long, they always favored you over me anyway."

Jiraiya gaped at her. "Me?!"

"You." She glared at him. "And don't think you're getting out of this one. You stuck me with the job of Hokage. In fact, you dodged that one _twice_. But I need someone I can trust to have my back on that damn Council, instead of reaching for a bigger sword every time there's a problem, and that means you. Suck it up."

"But... but... my research," he started plaintively.

"You've traveled enough to have all the background you need for another eight books at least," she told him ruthlessly. "And you've peeped at the baths enough for another ten. So don't give me that."

He hesitated, one hand lifting slowly to touch his forehead protector. "My allegiance is to Mt. Myouboku, Tsunade," he murmured, eyes dark. "Is that really acceptable, for Konoha's Council?"

Tsunade spent a moment fighting the urge to shake him until his teeth rattled; she didn't need more obstructionism, she needed him to say yes! But the truly troubled lines of his face softened her frustration. When she spoke, it was more gently than she had thought she could. "Jiraiya. You never abandoned your allegiance to Konoha. Your hunt for Orochimaru, your books, your travels, none of those changed what's truly important to you." She stood and came around the desk to lay her hands on those broad shoulders, the ones she'd cried on when her brother died, the ones she needed now to help her carry the village. "What is the most important thing to you, Jiraiya? Truly the most important? Tell me."

He had looked up when she came to him, but his eyes fell, at that. His mouth twitched a few times with unspoken words, but at last he sighed, deep and quiet, and closed his eyes. "The village of Hidden Leaf," he admitted. "When I ask myself, what is the most important thing... I see the sun over the roofs of Konoha."

She smiled, eyes prickling with sudden water. "You're such an old sap sometimes," she said, husky. "It's pitiful. Really."

He smiled crookedly up at her. "Yes, I suppose so."

"Do you still wonder if the Council will approve of you?" she asked, soft.

He sighed again, rueful this time. "I suppose not. Can I still have vacations now and then for research?"

"Only after Utatane and Mitokado are dead." She wasn't entirely joking about that, and judging by his wince he saw that.

"That good, hm? How thrilling this will be, I'm sure."

"Well, if it's any comfort, your student will be there, too," she said a bit dryly. "And he's a little firebrand."

Jiraiya looked pleased, and she laughed. "Tell me what they've been doing," he said, smiling again. "I know Naruto was pretty determined to heal the Nine-tails, when I left."

"Oh yes." Tsunade hitched herself up onto her desk and grinned down at him rather wickedly, feet swinging. "That was the _other_ thing."

* * *

"Are you absolutely sure this is a good idea?" Jiraiya asked one more time as he settled in the nested circles of Tsunade-baachan's channeling seals, and Naruto rolled his eyes. "I mean, aren't we rushing this a little?"

"Madara is still out there," Tsunade-baachan said, so acidly that Naruto knew she didn't like moving this fast either.

Well that was just too bad. He knew what had to be done, and they were going to do it just as soon as possible.

 _As soon as possible without killing yourself was the deal,_ the fox pointed out, filling Naruto with the sense of being eyed suspiciously. _I have no desire to be scattered through the land's chakra when I'm flung free of your unraveling spirit, and take who knows how long to pull myself back together._

 _I'm so touched by your concern,_ he sniped back. _Now shut up and let me concentrate._ He ignored the faint growls about insolent brats and triple-checked the seals that led from the old pervert to him.

"So how _are_ those combined patrols going?" Jiraiya asked as he inspected the seal rings around him.

"There are no signs of him yet, but no one really trusts that." Tsunade-baachan sighed as she shrugged out of her jacket and hung it by the door, rolling her shoulders to loosen them. Sakura, still studying the seal diagrams, absently whacked the old pervert on the back of the head when he paused to ogle the way that made Tsunade's boobs bounce. "Temari is especially suspicious, considering how Akatsuki got past Sand's sentries. She went and harangued Hiashi herself to get experienced Hyuuga assigned to each patrol, to look out for illusions."

Sasuke, leaning by the door, chuckled. "No wonder Shikamaru was looking like he had a headache the other day. I bet he wishes you'd assigned someone else to be liaison to the volunteers."

"It could be worse." Tsunade smiled, wryly. "It could have been Suigetsu busting up the bars again." She pulled tight the cord tying her hair up in a high tail and sighed. "All right, I think we're as ready as we can get, short of another few months of research. Jiraiya, get started. Sakura, be ready, I'll want you as soon as the channeling seal is closed. Sasuke," she looked up, sober, "keep watch over us. If one of us falls into chakra exhaustion, pull them out. If any technique will let you do it without disrupting the seals, it's the Sharingan."

Everyone nodded seriously, and Naruto couldn't resist piping up, "What about me?" His teacher gave him a familiar glower.

" _You_ get in communication with the fox and quit giving me lip, brat."

Naruto grinned as Jiraiya's two oldster toads popped into being at his sides. "Quit worrying, old bag, we're gonna be brilliant." He touched his fingers to the small, simple seal in front of his crossed legs. "I'll signal when we're ready to go." He closed his eyes, still grinning, and Tsunade-baachan's yell of _Naruto!_ followed him down to the place he met with the fox.

Nine-tails was lying on the surface of the water, there, chin resting on his crossed paws. "Your teacher is a reasonable being," he said, as ripples followed Naruto's steps across the water to him. "I suppose it wouldn't have been completely dreadful to be sealed to her. At least then I'd have been spared the appalling exhibitionism."

"Hey!" Naruto defended himself. "That was a stroke of genius! Sexy no Jutsu got a whole bar full of Mist Swordsmen and border patrollers to quit fighting!"

Nine-tails curled one enormous lip, but all he said was, "Are you ready?"

Naruto straightened and took three breaths, the way Tsunade had taught him to before any procedure, clearing his mind and preparing his body. He laid one hand on the fox's shoulder and focused, tighter, wider, until his chakra was flowing in the smooth pattern of Mystic Palms, ready to provide a template for the one he would heal. With his other hand, he traced the opening for the signal seal.

One breath, and Tsunade-baachan's chakra touched his, perfectly parallel; Naruto never stopped being stunned by the absolute control she had, even though he'd never say it out loud. She matched his chakra flow so closely he could feel their hearts beating in the same time, two of them as one to heal Nine-tails' scar: Naruto to connect and Tsunade to direct.

Two breaths, and their paired flow swept out to the fox, and that almost shocked Naruto loose. The fox's chakra pattern was structured like any other vertebrate's, but it was huge, wild, a raging torrent like nothing Naruto had ever seen. It was like a forest-fire with a soul.

Three breaths, and another energy surged through Tsunade's hands and into his, just as wild, just as raw, and somehow it _fit_. Dizzy, Naruto wondered if this was what Sakura felt every time she activated her seal, thought that now he understood what Nine-tails meant when he said he was a spirit of the land. This wild, inhuman power, untempered and uncaring, matched him perfectly.

He shook himself and kept breathing, holding his contact with Nine-tails and fighting to stay in rhythm with Tsunade-baachan's technique, to move with her, bit by bit through the fox's body and spirit. Or spirit-body. Or whatever. The shoulder under his hands flinched constantly and the fox whined as they touched bit after bit of torn or unnaturally smooth chakra and struck it like a bell, forced a resonance with the flow of their own chakra, dissolved the scar in the raging stream of nature energy. The fox's body drank it in like parched ground under rain.

Naruto was light-headed with the strain of another bit and another and another, but with each tiny scar-bit they dissolved, with each rush of nature energy that vanished into the fox without slowing, the more he was _angry_ too. He knew the attack eighteen years ago had had to be stopped, he knew that, but this was wrong. There had to be a better way to keep the fox from Madara. He would find a better way! He gritted his teeth with that resolution and kept going.

One more bit. And one more. And one more. And... there wasn't one more? Naruto wavered on his feet, stumbling against the fox's shoulder, as the rush of wild power tapered off. Oh. They were at the second part already.

He could feel that they had to be fast about it. The Nine-tails' chakra was unscarred now, flowing under his hands, but it wasn't whole. It was tilting, shuddering, on the edge of falling into disorder or consuming itself, and his eyes widened as he realized how much that scar had _stabilized_ the fox's chakra.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, Sakura, Tsunade-baachan, hurry up," he chanted, pressing his hands tight to the fox and reaching out desperately to try to steady his contract partner, feeling every fiber of his chakra _creak_ under the wavering weight of Nine-tails. "Hurry up, hurry up, come on you guys..."

All at once, chakra fell on him like a collapsing cliff face, blasted from Tsunade's hands into his, and his teeth locked on a groan as the force of it tore at him. His hands, here, were spirit, without the shield of a body, and the new flow of chakra _froze_ them even as the fox's spirit sucked it out of him as fast as it arrived, ravenous for this dark, sinking chakra. It went on and on until he thought he might be screaming and couldn't even hear himself to be sure.

And then it stopped.

Naruto slumped, panting and dazed against the Nine-tails' side, trying to understand why the world suddenly felt strange around him. Something... something had changed. Was he back in the outer world? No, there was colorless and opaque water under his feet, and under the paw next to him.

...the really huge paw.

"Nine-tails?" he mumbled, squinting.

"Sit down before you fall down, kit." The fox's voice rolled and rumbled like it never had before. Naruto looked up and sat down, all right, falling along with his jaw.

The fox was _huge_! He was taller than the cliffs around Konoha! "Oh wow," Naruto whispered.

The fox laughed, and threw up his muzzle and howled like a storm, like mountains breaking, and Naruto laughed too, delighted. This... this was what the fox was meant to be.

They'd done it!

He grabbed the fox's fur and scrambled up his leg and over his vast shoulder to stand on his head, and the fox let him with only a few disgruntled noises. Naruto was pretty sure he didn't mean them. He waved his arms at the white sky, triumphant and breathless and happy.

And... not tired?

"Um. Wasn't I exhausted just a minute ago?" he asked, curious.

An ear taller than he was flicked. "You and I are bound by our contract," the fox rumbled. "Until you die, our chakra is as one."

And they'd just fixed the fox's chakra; okay, that made sense. And also, wow. Naruto grinned. "This is going to be so cool!"

Nine-tails snorted and laid down, lowering his head so fast Naruto yelped and grabbed for a handhold in his fur. "Get back where you belong, kit. I imagine there's some cleaning up to do after all this."

Naruto pouted, but not very hard. He'd get to try all their moves out with this new strength soon. "I can tell when I'm not wanted," he declared, and grinned over his shoulder at the fox as he jumped down. "See you soon!"

The fox just watched him, enormous red eyes steady, as he closed his own eyes and walked forward, up, out, and was sitting crosslegged on the hard tile floor of the operating room.

"Tsunade-sama! Tsunade-sama!"

The frantic edge of Sakura's voice snapped Naruto's eyes open, and he started up onto his knees. "What...?" There was Sasuke at the edge of the seals looking shocked, and there was Jiraiya with an old woman in his arms, and there was Sakura with her hands wrapped around the old lady's, and... where was Tsunade-baachan?

"Tsunade, please, hang on!" The dreadful urgency of Jiraiya's entreaty shook Naruto's heart and he was talking... to the old woman.

"Tsunade... -baachan?" Naruto whispered, staring. It wasn't possible. But the old woman opened her eyes slowly, and they were Tsunade's eyes, warm and brown and sparkling with sharp annoyance.

"Quit standing there with your mouths hanging open, looking like idiots," she husked, voice suddenly old and fragile. "I'm not dead yet."

Sakura let out all her breath, bending over to press her head against Tsunade's hand, looking as dizzy with relief as Naruto felt. Jiraiya, on the other hand, inhaled deeply, the lines around his mouth carved deep and hard.

"You didn't tell me you risked your transformation, you idiot!" he bellowed, voice echoing off the walls. "What the hell were you thinking?"

She reached up one thin hand and smacked him on the shoulder; it barely rocked him at all, and Naruto bit his lip, eyes wide with worry. She was so weak, now!

"I thought that I'm the Hokage of this damn village and this is what had to be done," she snapped, and at least the tone sounded like her, even if the voice was husky and unsteady. "And I knew you'd argue and yell, and we didn't have time."

Jiraiya sputtered indignantly until she smiled up at him. Then he sighed. "I'm doomed to be surrounded by reckless fools," he muttered, lifting Tsunade up to rest against his shoulder.

Sasuke and Tsunade exchanged a very speaking look over Jiraiya's head, and Sasuke's lips twitched as a grin tugged at them. Naruto supposed it was kind of funny to hear Jiraiya accusing anyone else of recklessness, though the humor was hard to see right this moment. He took a few breaths to stop his head spinning and glowered inward at the fox. _Some cleaning up?_ he asked, hard.

 _A little,_ the fox agreed in his new, deeper rumble. _Idiot kit. Are you a healer or aren't you?_

Naruto stared at thin air for a startled moment before smiling sheepishly. Okay, maybe he deserved the "idiot" this time. "Okay, we're okay," he assured the rest of the room. "Here."

Tsunade-really-baachan's eyes widened as he held his hands over her. "Naruto, don't do that ye—"

Chakra punched through his system like a fist, not the usual flow of healing but a wild burst of it, and they both gasped. The diamond on Tsunade's forehead snapped into being again, and it was only then that Naruto realized it had been gone. Tsunade's hands locked around his with all her usual strength, even if she still looked old.

Her voice was as loud as ever, though, when she hollered, "Naruto! No chakra techniques until you've practiced them at least three times each!"

"Um. Yes, sensei," Naruto mumbled, dazed. He shook his head briskly, trying to clear out the buzz in his thoughts, and swore he could feel the fox rolling his eyes.

Tsunade-baachan straightened up, years melting away with every breath. "Your chakra is linked tightly to the Nine-tails, and your system has an entirely new balance now," she scolded as she elbowed away from Jiraiya. "You're my most advanced apprentice after Shizune, these days, you should know this!"

"It worked," Naruto defended himself.

"Only because I had enough control to harness the surge, and channel it into my reservoir seal." She frowned at him sternly until he held up his hands.

"Okay, okay, I'll practice first! Promise!"

"Good." She patted her hands over herself quickly. "Okay, all back together." She eyed him and relented far enough to say, "You shaped the technique reasonably well. Just remember to slow down, in your work, for a while."

Naruto nodded meekly, and accepted Sakura's hand up off the floor, leaning against her shoulder as Sasuke came to rest a hand on his back.

"And we'll hope that Madara gives us time for that," Jiraiya said quietly.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi takes Sai under his wing and Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura help Sai start to find his emotional feet. Just in time for Madara to make his move on Konoha. Drama, Angst.

"Where is the man?!" Tsunade pounded a fist on her desk, which creaked in protest even through Shizune had gotten it reinforced with metal and stone supports. Kakashi couldn't really blame her.

"He's letting us wear ourselves out," he said from his perch atop her filing cabinet, out of the way of any shrapnel. "We've found a few Akatsuki bases in nearly every country, but I doubt we've found them all. He'll stay hidden in one until we're exhausted and he's ready."

"And this is Uchiha Madara," Jiraiya added, stretching out his long legs and slumping further down into Tsunade's guest chair. "The Hyuuga can't be everywhere, there aren't enough of them strong enough to see through that grade of illusion." His mouth quirked in wry acknowledgement of Tsunade's anger. "At least this delay is giving Naruto time to re-learn his techniques."

Tsunade sat back in her chair looking sour. "Yes, and that's another thing."

Kakashi grinned a bit behind his mask. "He's still nagging you to let him manifest?" He'd been witness to one of Naruto's pitches to be allowed to try, three weeks ago, and Naruto had already been waving his arms and ranting at that one.

"He's a medic himself!" Tsunade sounded aggrieved. "He should know perfectly well that a patient's chakra must be allowed to reach equilibrium after major surgery."

"Besides, which," Jiraiya murmured, "it would cause chaos and panic throughout the village if he did it here."

Tsunade sighed. "That too. The two old goats made much of that."

"Yes. I don't think I'm their favorite any more, either, after not stopping you or telling them what you planned." Jiraiya cocked a brow at Tsunade. "You must have been keeping your temper with them a lot better than I'd thought, if they could think for one instant than I or anyone else could stop you once you've made a decision."

"I've been attempting to compromise reasonably between the governing factions of the village." Tsunade frowned, hands tracing over the cracked surface of her desk. "I don't want to become what too many clan heads and Elders are, thinking that having power means they must be right."

"You aren't them," Kakashi said quietly. "You're Tsunade of the Leaf. We follow you because you've always cared for what's right." And sometimes the pride and terror of thinking that he might, just might, be able to live up to that legacy himself stopped his breath.

Tsunade met his eyes with a crooked smile. "I'd apologize for the weight of that, that I'll leave to you," she said gently, "because I know damn well how heavy it is. But I'd be lying; I'll do my best to make it even heavier, because that's my duty."

Kakashi bent his head. "I know." She'd spent years running away from that weight, just like he had, and it hadn't done either of them a bit of good in the end. Hopefully, they'd do better against Madara than against their own demons.

Whenever he finally got around to showing up.

* * *

In a wide, rounded, stone room underneath Fire country's eastern lakes, a black and white body stepped out of the wall.

"Well?" asked the dim figure sitting quietly away from the single lamp.

The back and white head shook. "The boy's been working his way up to complex techniques again, but he hasn't manifested so much as a tail, much less the whole fox."

Red eyes narrowed in the shadows. "How unusually cautious. I would like to be sure the demon is in top shape before I extract it. I suppose we might go fetch the Eight-tails first, but I don't want to miss a good chance at the real prize. Perhaps it's time to provide some... extra motivation." Teeth flashed for a moment. "I can spare you enough chakra to create, perhaps, six full clones."

Both the black and white side of the face split into a smile.

* * *

The duties of a jounin were always irregular. A mission here, a season of teaching there, administrative jobs tucked in whenever a body was recovering from some injury, and sometimes political duties when someone retired from the field. Kakashi had known all of that, and though he'd done his best for years to stave off the political duties he'd never expected to avoid everything.

What he hadn't expected was to be doing all of them at once.

He watched over Naruto's re-training whenever Jiraiya-san wasn't available. Shikaku-san had started insisting that Kakashi sit in on mission application hearings. He appeared to be one of Tsunade-san's new de facto first councilors since she was nearly at knife-points with Mitokado and Utatane over Naruto. And here he was with an escort mission, of sorts, albeit a self-assigned one.

But he'd be damned before he let Sai go talk with Danzou alone.

He slouched along beside the boy, hands stuffed in his pockets, and caught the eye of the outer perimeter guard hidden in the garden a few houses down from Danzou's apartment building. She nodded and let them pass.

"ANBU was tasked to guard Danzou-san, even though you might not have found all of Root's members yet?" Sai asked, and Kakashi reminded himself wryly that this was the ANBU genius of the younger generation he was walking beside. Of course Sai had noticed.

"Would you tell us if you recognized a Root member we haven't found?" he asked in return.

Sai gave him a look whose very blankness clearly suggested that even respected senpai could be complete morons, and touched his lips. Kakashi chuckled. "Exactly." Until they found the key for that seal, they couldn't release mission information about Danzou to Sai, including information about who guarded him.

Sai cocked his head. "Ah. You think the seal may have another element?" A compulsion, of course, or else why worry what information he had. The blank, dark eyes turned considering. "I do not know."

Because he had never disobeyed Danzou.

Kakashi liked talking with Sai. It kept him sharp and in practice with field speech, where the most important things were left unsaid. It also kept his rage with Danzou fresh, which was its own kind of advantage when going to speak to the old snake.

The inner perimeter, currently the doorman, let them through and Kakashi led the way up to Danzou's apartment. He rapped his knuckles on the plain wood door and, after a long moment of waiting, was bidden to enter.

Danzou was sitting in a straight chair by the windows without, Kakashi was pleased to see, his over-robe and its stock of nasty surprises and pre-drawn seals. He didn't think Danzou would bother to attack him, but he still didn't know what Sai planned to do here today; if anything turned explosive, he'd rather not have Danzou's full array of weapons to deal with. Danzou's plain, white kimono showed his withered right arm more clearly than usual; Kakashi wondered if the man was brazen enough to try to play on the sympathies of his guards with that old injury, despite what all of ANBU knew was still deadly skill.

"Sai," Danzou greeted the boy, without any apparent surprise. "What is the status of Root?"

"All members are accounted for," Sai answered promptly, automatically, "and are under evaluation by—" here he stumbled, eyes suddenly shifting between Danzou and Kakashi. "By the Hokage's command," he finished slowly.

"Under which," Kakashi noted dryly, leaning against the wall with crossed arms, "you have no right to command any of them. Including Sai."

Danzou's fingers flicked as if to brush that aside. "And how, without me to require the report, could you be sure everyone _was_ accounted for?"

"Nor is that information you should have, now." Kakashi gave Danzou an affable, eye-crinkling smile. If Danzou really wanted to convince him that little security breach had been some kind of helpful gesture, he shouldn't be fishing for whether or not the rest of ANBU had found a way to identify Root.

Danzou shrugged his whole shoulder, looking careless. "As you wish. What is the purpose for this visit, then?"

Kakashi opened his hand at Sai, who took a few more steps away from the door, into the clear center of the room. "I wanted to ask," the boy started, expressionless and hesitant both, somehow, "why you ordered me to kill Naruto."

Danzou's brow rose. "I gave orders to keep him out of enemy hands, or to stop the demon if the seal began to fail." He made it sound so reasonable that Kakashi had to stop his fist from clenching.

"No," Sai said quietly. "You are the greatest master of seal techniques in ANBU, possibly in the whole village. You could not be ignorant of the nature of Naruto's seal. You ordered me to kill him if there was _any_ change; but the seal was bound to change if Naruto ever gained full command of the demon fox, is that not correct?"

Kakashi straightened just a fraction, stifling a grin as Danzou's shoulders turned stiffer. The problem with training an operative like Sai, of course, was that he never _stopped_ noticing things.

"Why did you consider that such a dangerous possibility?" Sai went on, hands folded behind him as if he were reporting and not interrogating. "You always said that Root serves to defend the village. What was the danger, there?"

Danzou's face settled into hard lines and his left hand closed tight on his knee. "What danger? You're too young to have seen it, but I was there when the demon fox freed itself from the grip of a woman better trained and more experienced than that boy. Hiruzen kept him ignorant and trusted to his _heart_." Danzou's short laugh of disbelief was harsh. "The demon is too dangerous. It will escape him eventually, and there will be more of _this_ ," he twitched his scarred right arm, showing how stiff and strengthless it was even after the best efforts of the Leaf's healers, "and the village cannot afford that!"

"The village?" Kakashi murmured, "or Shimura Danzou?"

"The shinobi are the village's strength," the old man said firmly, and Kakashi's eye narrowed.

"Then why are you so willing to sacrifice individuals?" he asked, soft and dangerous. "Individuals who aren't you, at least."

"Everyone has their role to play, Kakashi-kun." Danzou settled back in his chair.

Kakashi wasn't sure whether he was more impressed with Danzou's relentless ability to shift the ground of any argument to his favor, or more appalled by the man's self-centeredness and the growing suspicion that Danzou had lost track of reality and honestly believed all his own shifting, contradictory statements from moment to moment.

"Danzou-sama," Sai said into the silent tension between the two men, and they both turned to look at him. "If you still commanded me, what mission would you give me next?"

The faintest smile hovered at the corners of Danzou's mouth, and it was Kakashi's turn to stiffen; just what contingencies, he wondered coldly, had Danzou thought to condition or compel his people to?

"I would say that you should finish the mission you were already given." Danzou watched both of them with a hooded eye. "The threat to the village has not been removed yet."

Not yet, no, Kakashi thought, careful of his breathing to conceal his rage; but it would be soon even if he had to kill Danzou without sanction. And then he raised a brow as Sai turned to him.

"Kakashi-san. If all goes as the Hokage wishes, you will command ANBU soon. Under these circumstances, what order would _you_ give me?"

Kakashi actually blinked, and a slow smile tugged at his mouth. Sai was _testing_ them. Raised to follow his orders without question, no matter what they were, and still the boy was feeling his way toward judging his superiors. He wanted very badly to smirk at Danzou, but Sai deserved an answer first.

"Hmm. I'd also say to go on as you have been, if for somewhat different reasons." Danzou's ever so faint snarl warmed his heart, and he beamed at Sai behind his mask. "As far as mission orders," he continued, more seriously, "I would hesitate to send you out again before I was sure you were fit to judge your orders and choose how to carry them out."

"A shinobi has no need of such judgment," Danzou snapped. "Not until they are experienced enough to step back from the field and give orders themselves."

Kakashi didn't look away from Sai. "Shinobi are the weapons of their villages. Their nations. Their employers. True enough. But a shinobi without the will to evaluate orders, and even modify them if field conditions demand it, is a blade without a sheath. And members of ANBU are ground to a sharper edge than any others. That's what you've been waving around your own village, Danzou."

"Your sentimentality is your great failing, Kakashi-kun," Danzou growled.

Sai hadn't looked away from him, and Kakashi smiled at the shadows of thought shifting behind those dark eyes. "From your perspective, I have no doubt that's true. But that's also why I was chosen by the Fifth." The unspoken _and why you were not_ rang in the quiet air of the apartment. Danzou's good arm tensed, and Kakashi got a foot under himself, ready to move if he had to.

Slowly, Sai nodded. "I believe I know what I need to." He turned again and bowed to Danzou. "Danzou-sama."

Danzou sat back, good hand spread against his leg again. "Take that one with you when you go, then." He jerked his chin at Kakashi.

Sai went promptly to the door and held it open, looking over his shoulder. "Kakashi-san?"

Kakashi let himself be ushered out and watched Sai from the corner of his eye as they made their way back down three flights of well-lit stairs and out to the street. It was two blocks before Sai spoke.

"I do not believe there is a compulsion element to the seal," he said, quite casual, "but you should come with me to see Naruto, to be sure."

Kakashi whistled. Sai might have been trained never to question or think about his orders, but he had a quick mind, that was clear. No one without one could have come up so speedily with a plan to test the seal for compulsion. No one who didn't want to be able to question would have tested it by asking for orders he intended to disobey, or attempt to.

No one who wasn't ANBU to the bone would have used himself as the test material in so dangerous a trial so unflinchingly.

Kakashi nodded to himself; he thought he knew where Sai stood, now. "I'll come, yes," he agreed. "Hopefully I'll even get to you before Sakura, if there turns out to be a compulsion after all."

"That would be helpful," Sai agreed, with no trace of understanding the joke, dark as it was. Kakashi sighed to himself. They would have to work on Sai's sense of humor.

* * *

Naruto flopped over in the scrubby grass of the eighth training ground with his arms thrown out. "That's six Rasengan in a row," he panted, "while channeling chakra to Sakura and avoiding those fucking Chidori Senbon. Can I manifest _now_?"

 _You have the patience of a bird,_ the fox rumbled, sounding amused. _A small one. In spring._

The fox was getting a lot more mellow, now he was healed, but Naruto wasn't completely sure this was an improvement, at least as far as the smart remarks went.

"I think you and the Nine-tails are both stable," Jiraiya said from where he was lounging against a tree with a jug of sake, overseeing Sakura's work on some of his sage techniques, "but Tsunade will have to check you over to be sure. You know she'll skin us both if I tell you you can try before she's had a look." He wagged a finger at Sasuke. "And you! Stop resting on past accomplishments! It's about time you started working on some new applications; you perfected Chidori Senbon over a year ago."

Sasuke gave his teacher a bored look from where he was sitting cross-legged in the grass. "What, like this?" His hands, which Naruto suddenly realized had been stealthily forming the Boar and the Monkey in his lap, flicked out and a net of fire burned toward Jiraiya. The old pervert yelped, dropping his jug as his hands clapped into the Snake and a wall of earth surged up to block the net. Sasuke leaned back on his hands, smirking.

"That's a decent start, I suppose, yes," Jiraiya said thoughtfully from behind his wall.

Sakura came to haul Naruto out of the grass, laughing breathlessly. "You should have known you wouldn't catch Sasuke out like that, Jiraiya-sama."

The old man was smiling as he dismissed the wall. "I suppose I should."

Sasuke looked aside, just a little flushed at the compliment, and Naruto grinned. "You two are so _cute_ ," he cooed, eyes dancing wickedly.

"Cute?!" Both Sasuke and Jiraiya protested, but it was Sasuke's hands that were flashing up into the Tiger, and Naruto prepared to dodge, laughing.

"Guys," Sakura's voice cut through the horseplay, suddenly level. "Heads up."

Naruto and Sasuke spun to flank her, alert, and Naruto blinked when he saw the two coming towards them. "Sakura, that's just Kakashi-sensei and... oh." Okay, no wonder Sakura was tense. The other one was definitely Sai.

"Mm." Sasuke touched Sakura's shoulder and stepped back to cover them both.

"Guuuys," Naruto groaned. He didn't usually have any problem at all with how protective his team was, but this was silly. Kakashi-sensei wouldn't bring Sai around if he was dangerous!

"It's our job, Naruto, quit complaining," Sakura ordered coolly, and he gave up. That was her mission voice, and there was no arguing with it.

Kakashi-sensei ambled up, hands in his pockets, so elaborately casual that even Naruto gave him a suspicious look. A Kakashi that casual was a Kakashi who was up to something, most likely some kind of object lesson. The only question was, who for? The old pervert seemed to have the same question, because he went to meet them and exchanged a few quiet words with Kakashi-sensei. He didn't look entirely happy as he glanced back at Naruto and his team, but he sighed and waved three fingers at them before turning and strolling back toward the village with his sake jug dangling from one fist.

"All clear sign," Sasuke murmured from behind them.

"Hm." Sakura didn't sound entirely convinced, and Naruto sighed.

"Ah, good," Kakashi-sensei said as he came into ear shot. "You're all here."

As if that were a cue, Sai stepped forward, smiling his weird smile. "Naruto-kun. I wanted to apologize."

The fox growled as soon as Sai spoke, and Naruto couldn't help wincing himself. There was something _wrong_ about Sai's voice, his smile; Naruto could actually feel it, like a pebble in his sandal or something.

 _Corruption,_ the fox said in his head, crackling like fire. _Rot. Twisting. This is what I live to destroy._

 _Well you can't kill him,_ Naruto answered sharply. _It's not his fault!_

Sai was watching him, head cocked. "Naruto-kun?"

Naruto winced again, helplessly. "You... you don't have to do that, you know. The smiling. I mean... you don't have to."

No one moved at all for one moment and then the alarming smile slid off Sai's face like it had been wiped away with a sponge. What was left was a little unnerving; even shinobi weren't often that still, just _watching_ like that, but at least it didn't make him twitch inside. The feeling of the Nine-tails calmed a little, too, the pressure of his growl easing. Even Sakura eased back off her toes a bit. Naruto breathed a sigh of relief.

"That makes you uncomfortable?" Sai asked, sounding a little curious even if he didn't look it much.

"Well it was a little weird already, but since Nine-tails got better we're... not closer, I mean he's still kind of a jerk, but I sense some of the things he does. And when you smile like that it's just wrong. You don't want to. You don't mean it. It's..." Naruto rubbed a hand through his hair, looking for a different word and finally sighed. "Yeah, okay, he's right. It's twisted."

"And yet neither of you seem to feel that way when Sai isn't bothering with emotion at all," Kakashi-sensei murmured, eye sharp on them both. "Interesting."

Naruto thought about it. Now he was kind of curious himself. "It's... he feels a little... cold," he said at last, slowly. "But it's not _bad_. Just cold." It actually felt a little the way Sakura did, beside him right now, focused like a burning glass on Sai.

"Very interesting." Kakashi-sensei glanced over at Sai. "Well?"

Sai reached up to touch his tantou, and Sakura's tension cranked back up a notch. "I feel no compulsion to attack. I believe we may conclude the seal is a restraint only."

Sakura pulled in a breath like the hiss of a snake, and whirled on Kakashi-sensei. "You tested this using Naruto and Sai without telling us...?!" Her hands hovered, ready to form seals, and Naruto had a queasy feeling she would go straight for her activation.

"Um, Sakura-chan..."

"Sakura," Kakashi-sensei cut in firmly. "Stand down. That's an order."

Her eyes narrowed, but slowly she lowered her hands. "Tell me why," she said, low and hard.

"Sai chose to test this on himself, knowing that if there was a compulsion, and if I couldn't subdue him first, you and Sasuke would kill him. Think about that."

If anything her glare intensified. "Kakashi-sensei..." she grated through her teeth.

Sai had been standing quite calmly and without reaching for a weapon all through this, and Naruto shivered. "How can you do that?" he asked softly. "How can you be so calm about something like that?"

Sai shrugged one shoulder a fraction. "ANBU is the sword of Konoha," he said, perfectly tranquil. "Whatever is required, we will do. It was necessary to test this." He slanted a glance at Sakura. "Anger is not necessary."

Sakura rounded on him. "You think I want to kill one of my own village?" she yelled at him, eyes blazing. "Anger is damn well necessary, over something like this! We should have been warned! There should have been more controls, to keep both of you safe during the test!"

Sai blinked and cocked his head at her. "You are angry... because _I_ was in danger? I was the threat."

"You're a shinobi of the Leaf, you absolute moron!" Sakura's hands were flexing like she was about to wrap them around his neck and shake him. "You're loyal to this village! You deserve to be protected too! And I'm really damn angry that you weren't!"

Sai looked even more puzzled and Naruto was torn between laughing and yelling a little himself. "Look, you've already been hurt, and that really sucks," he put in. "None of us would be happy with the idea of hurting you more, especially if it's not your fault."

"Distress over another's pain," Sai murmured. "This is what is called empathy?"

The fox flinched and whined, and Naruto didn't blame him at all. The cold was getting more noticeable.

The grass rustled as Sasuke came back up beside them, sliding a handful of shuriken back into his pouch, eyes level on Sai. "You know what it is," he said, quiet and confident. "When your brother was in pain, you were distressed."

Sai jerked a little, as if he'd started to step back and stopped himself. "Shin," he whispered, eyes suddenly distant. "I don't..."

"You were," Sasuke insisted. "Otherwise, you wouldn't have tried so hard to make it stop."

"Oh," Naruto said, eyes widening. Now he got it. "That... was that _why_?" Heat gathered in his chest, burning and growing, and the fox's growl resonated through it. This time, he welcomed it, because his own fury was in there too. " _That_ was why Danzou made them fight?" To hurt Sai so badly he'd freeze himself to stop the pain?

Sai wasn't tranquil any more. His face was drawn and his arms were pulled in tight. "Shin." The cold deepened.

Naruto couldn't stand it any longer. He stepped forward and grabbed Sai's forearms. "You don't have to do that!" he burst out. "It won't happen again. I won't let it!"

Sai stared at him for a long moment. "You're very like him," he finally said quietly. "I remember... he said things like that, too."

"If you remember," Kakashi-sensei finally spoke up again, "then he is still with you. That's why we remember, and care, even when it hurts."

Sai turned his head to look up at Kakashi-sensei, not pulling away from Naruto. "Is it worth it?" The thoughtless innocence of the question made Naruto's anger with Danzou burn hotter, even though the fox was slowly settling again.

Kakashi-sensei looked down at Sai gravely. "Yes, it is."

Sai bowed his head. "I see." He looked back at Naruto for a breath, considering, and finally smiled. It was small and faint, but real.

Naruto grinned back with vast relief as the sense of coldness eased. "There we go," he said softly. "See? It's okay."

"Perhaps," Sai murmured.

Sasuke stepped forward and rested a hand on Sai's shoulder for a moment, nodding. Sakura clasped the other shoulder hard and shook Sai just a little. "Not every moment is a mission," she told him, a bit husky. "When it isn't, that's when you relax so you don't go crazy, okay?"

Sai looked at her for a long, thoughtful moment, and finally nodded. "I suppose I can try."

Naruto thought maybe Kakashi-sensei's lesson today had been for all of them.

* * *

Danzou sat at his window, watching the people passing in the street below as dusk softened the shapes of the village's roofs, and turned plans over in his head. There had been no commotion in the village today, so he had to assume that Sai had been unable to complete his mission. Again. There was an outside possibility that the boy really had broken his conditioning sufficiently to refuse the mission, but he considered that very unlikely. Root's training had taken very completely with Sai, doubly so once the turning point of killing his "brother" had passed. Most likely, then, Kakashi had stopped Sai.

For all Kakashi had been silent in Council, as befit a mere potential Hokage candidate, Danzou knew perfectly well whose hand had truly driven his downfall. Contrary to his lazy airs, Kakashi was hot blooded; it was little wonder he'd left ANBU, in the end. Perhaps Danzou should have tried harder to acquire Kakashi for Root when he'd been orphaned, though ten years old was late to start that training. For a while, Danzou had thought it didn't matter—that Kakashi would live for nothing but the village and abide purely by the Code, whether he was formally of Root or no. Namikaze Minato had much to answer for, not only for failing to destroy the Nine-tails but for turning one of Konoha's most powerful shinobi away from his right path. One bare year as Kakashi's jounin-sensei and his hooks had been set, pulling the boy further and further from his duty. It was uncanny.

And Namikaze's brat clearly had some of the same nature, in addition to his mother's temper. Why could no one but him see the danger that posed?

"Brooding again, Shimura-kun?"

Danzou jerked up out of his chair in shock. No one should be able to enter this room without his knowledge! Not through the seals he'd placed on every wall, on the ceiling and floor, on the door and each window. But there was another standing there in the center of his floor mats, arms folded, wearing a mocking smile. The seamed and wrinkled face was only vaguely familiar, but there was no mistaking the man's eyes, red even in shadow, and marked with three black curls. It took long seconds for Danzou to believe the only possible conclusion, to even consider the idea, but there was only one man of the Uchiha who could be this old and still alive.

"You're dead," were the words that came out of his mouth, nevertheless, in his shock. "The First killed you."

Uchiha Madara spread black gloved hands, indicating his solid and living body in its loose, night-blue clothing. "As you can see, he did not. Indeed, I like to think that I won that day. After all," he smiled bright and terrible in the dimness, "I'm still here and Hashirama is not."

Danzou took a slow breath and straightened up. "Not for long." His outer robe, with all its seals and tags, was hanging across the room, but he was not helpless.

Madara waved his fingers. "Not so quickly, Shimura-kun. After all, you're now in my position too, aren't you? Thrown away by those you tried to warn. Exiled from the place you should have. Ignored by those you should lead."

"I am no traitor," Danzou snapped, trying to think whether he could convert the barrier seal under the floor mats to a binding seal quickly enough to catch a shinobi of Madara's power.

"Is it treachery to wish to lead your own people?" Madara purred. "You have more experience and wisdom than the Senju chit that leads now, surely."

Danzou's stomach was sinking; he remembered Madara's crushing strength, and none of the seals he had to hand, or the techniques he could perform without preparation would hold or kill him. The most he could do was probably to raise an alarm, and if the man had gotten in _here_ undetected, that might not be enough.

At least not if he attacked here and now.

"What are you suggesting?" he finally asked, harshly. "You've tried more than once to destroy this village, and now you expect me to believe you'll leave anything for me to actually lead?"

"I'm willing to make reasonable bargains," Madara murmured, pacing toward him and turning to circle him. The skin between Danzou's shoulder blades crawled, and he held himself fiercely still. "If you aid me in capturing the Nine-tails, I will undertake to leave the village in your hands. Intact. As long," he stopped in front of Danzou, red eyes boring into his, "as you make no move against me in the future." He smiled. "Don't you want the demon fox to go away, Shimura-kun? Hasn't that been the idea all this time?"

Madara must be used to dealing with madmen, if he thought that kind of logic would work. But if he was used to his blandishments working, perhaps it would give Danzou enough time. "What do you want?" he asked, low.

"Why, nothing you wouldn't already be doing, if you only had the opportunity!" Madara swung away from him, spreading his arms as if to indicate his generosity. "Kill Tsunade. And the Hatake pup. Use that Root of yours to cut the Sacrifice out of the herd so I can take the Nine-tails. And then you can be seen to drive me off, and the village will be yours."

True temptation welled up in Danzou's heart for a moment. For the price of two lives, the very two who were leading the village astray, he could have Konoha and protect it properly.

If only Madara could be counted on to keep his bargain, he might really have done it.

"You'll need to get me out of here without raising any alarm," he said slowly.

"Nothing is easier," Madara said softly, turning to face him again with that gleaming smile. "Come along, then, Shimura-kun."

The room around them twisted impossibly, spinning and sinking on the still point of Madara's right eye, and then everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, Danzou and Madara did not meet during the Third War, in this continuity. No, Madara doesn't wear a mask. Tobi = Madara was either the clumsiest Author Had A Better Idea ever or else the most ridiculous character detour ever, and in either case I deeply dislike that design choice. So Madara gets a face, here. As for Tobi =/= Madara... that was the most pointless "twist" imaginable, and I hereby ignore it entirely. Tobi doesn't exist, in this continuity, Madara does. Also, implanted Sharingan has been done, so Danzou's arm and eye were plain old stricken in the Nine-tails' attack and his abilities are his own.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Madara attacks Konoha with the aid of Zetsu and Danzou. Foxes, demons, dragons, tailed beasts, generations old grudge matches, and other kinds of hell break loose. Action, Drama.

Alarms were ringing through Konoha's night, hurrying the civilians to the shelters, raising the lights in the village center, calling the close patrols in to defend their homes. Shinobi of the village ran to guard the wall and ranged through the training grounds beyond, searching for the attackers.

"Where the hell _are_ they?" Naruto demanded tightly, crouched on the wall over the east gate, glaring out into the night.

"I think the question is _what_ are they," Sakura said quietly, standing against Sasuke's back to guard him as he swept the Sharingan over their assigned sector.

"Not here yet, apparently," Sasuke answered, though he didn't stop looking for a moment. "The trees and earth seem empty. Do we know, yet, if they can camouflage themselves at all?"

"Unknown," Aburame Muta reported after a moment, from below the lip of the wall where he waited and listened to his bugs. "No one reports it so far."

"Injured coming in," Sasuke said, voice flat. Naruto hissed through his teeth. This was the third injured party and they still hadn't been able to kill whatever was out there.

He dropped down inside the wall to his medical station to meet the two stretchers, hands moving fast as he cut away cloth and sutured deep cuts like claw rakes. That was the easy part, though. Most of the injuries he'd seen tonight were broken bones and crushed organs from where people had been punched or hurled into trees.

Or by trees. The reports were a little fuzzy on that.

Naruto held his hands over the side of the worst-hit one where ribs had shattered and a kidney was ruptured, and fought one more time to control the wild rush of the fox's chakra through his own. It was exhilarating; he _wanted_ to lose himself in it, and that was the hardest part. He had to concentrate, had to keep his mind on the mirror between his body, his chakra, and his patient's.

 _You do seem to match me well in this,_ Nine-tails observed, and Naruto had the impression of an ear cocked at him curiously. _Unusually so._

 _Sakura says that's what Leaf's seal is made to do,_ Naruto answered, leaning against his table and panting as he waved to two of the inner line to come take his patients to a recovery station until they woke up. _To shape your host a little, with the chakra that seeps through. I guess it took really well on me, because it was done so young._

 _Perhaps it was not entirely a bad thing then,_ the fox murmured, and Naruto wanted to take the time to tease him, to be loudly shocked by the admission, but he didn't have time right now. He shook his head sharply, trying to throw off the floaty glow that healing left these days, and sprang back up to the wall. _Can't you see where these guys are? I mean, you're a spirit of the land and they're moving through earth and trees!_

 _And they appear to belong there,_ the fox answered dryly. _There is corruption on the night's wind, yes. But not from these attackers._

Naruto growled in frustration as he landed beside Sasuke again and got a raised eyebrow. "Nine-tails can't feel them," he answered it. "He says it's like they really are wood and earth or something."

"Some kind of summons?" Sakura wondered. "Or even a jutsu, like the Shadow Clones, only with an elemental chakra?"

"Or a bloodline limit," Sasuke suggested. "But I don't think that matters as much as the fact that the Sharingan and Byakugan can still _see them_!" On those last words, he launched a flight of Chidori Senbon, catching the arm of a figure emerging into the shadow of a tree. It vanished back into wood at once, but left blood on the ground as it did.

"Team at the east gate has marked one of the white ones," Sakura relayed to Muta. "Left arm is injured." She frowned and added, "And this doesn't make sense. They're injuring us more than we are them, but mostly because it's night. As soon as there's more light we'll have the advantage, and however many there are, they aren't attacking strongly enough to finish us off by dawn. Not by a long shot. They've got to be softening us up for something else. Muta-san, ask that a warning be relayed, please. Everyone needs to keep an eye out for whatever the real attack is."

* * *

Tsunade's mouth quirked. "How many was that?"

"Four, more or less at the same time," Aburame Katou murmured, looking just a little amused himself, even behind his high collar. "Haruno, Nara Shikamaru, ANBU's Deer, and Nara Shikaku."

Tsunade scowled. "Shikaku put himself on the wall, didn't he? No, don't answer that. I suppose I knew he would."

Katou coughed delicately. "He, ah, also requested that we relay his observation that you are on the wall as well, Hokage-sama."

"The Hokage isn't chosen from among the strongest so she can always lead from the rear," Tsunade said with dignity, glancing only a little guiltily down at the tall main gate below them. "In any case, yes, relay the warning to be on guard for a second attack. I wish Jiraiya hadn't taken a wide patrol this week," she added quietly.

"I imagine the attack came now because he's gone," Kakashi murmured, watching the trees with his Sharingan uncovered beside her. He winced just a little at the creaking explosion of wood to the west of them. "Short of the Swordsmen being gone, Madara probably thought this was his best opportunity to see the village weakened at all."

Tsunade grinned with rather more appreciation at those sounds of enthusiastic destruction, remembering a few bars and other landscape she'd busted up in her time. "They are energetic, aren't they? I like that in a ninja. Maybe I won't give them back to Terumii." Her designated successor gave her a rather dour look, and she laughed, patting his shoulder. It was good for him to be on the receiving end of teasing, she thought; it seemed to have been far too long since he last had been.

In fact, the more deeply she dug into Kakashi's background, the more guilty she felt about choosing him. He was undeniably the right choice, by every measure of strength, of responsibility, of care for the village. But he had far less of a support network than he was going to need when he became Hokage. She'd been thinking about how to alleviate that, but it would be a slow process.

She was turning over the other jounin in Kakashi's age range in her mind when she felt the faint stickiness of her train of thought. The stubborn clinging to a topic that wasn't the one she should be concentrating on right now. Her breath hissed in and her hands flashed out to touch Kakashi and Katou as she surged her chakra, spilling it through them too. "Kai!"

There was a shadow in the trees across the cleared zone from the gate and a kunai singing toward her, trailing a seal behind it. She caught the knife between two fingers and shaped her chakra to lightning to char the seal. "Subtle," she observed, clearly enough to be heard in the trees. Behind her, the subliminal hum of Katou's insects rose a notch, no doubt relaying word that the second attack had appeared.

"Clearly an approach that's wasted on you," answered the shadow, an old voice but still a strong one. And edged with contempt. Even without the flash of red eyes, that would have told her who this must be.

"Madara."

The old man—who should be dead damn it—strolled along a branch into the wash of light from the walls. The red-cloud robes of Akatsuki were abandoned. He wore a short, indigo robe now, and a battle fan she remembered from the picture her grandfather had kept until his death. He was smiling. "It will be satisfying, after all this time, to watch the last of Hashirama's line die. All of you have been far too wood-headed to appreciate subtlety. The village deserved better."

From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimmer of light down wire and found herself abruptly in the heart of a dome of seals. All in a breath, a cyclone howled down around her, edged with knives of flame, deadly force pouring through the seals and darting for her in a hundred strikes, poised to tear aside her defenses.

Tsunade smiled.

Lines of ink flared up under and around her feet as she stood where she was, and twisting streams of force rose to wrap her in the second stage of the Sun on the Ocean seal. When the clap and thunder of chakra faded, she stood untouched and Kakashi was looking up from where he knelt behind her, hand pressed to the seal's activation point.

"I appreciate subtlety just fine." She held Madara's eyes, level and challenging, daring him to try an illusion technique on an alert medic of her caliber. "I'm afraid you're just not very good at it."

His smile twisted. "Shimura-kun," he ordered softly.

Danzou emerged onto the branch behind him, and as much as she hated the man it was still a blow to see him standing calmly there beside Konoha's attacker. Exactly as Madara had meant it to be. She locked down her reaction fiercely. Behind her she heard the soft hiss of Kakashi's breath.

"A preset trap only works once." Danzou nodded to them, casually. "But so does a preset defense. Let us test your expertise." His hand flickered and three kunai with seal tags slammed into the top of the wall in a triangle around Kakashi, and Danzou raised two fingers in the activation seal.

As tearing vacuum wrapped around Kakashi, Tsunade kept her eyes locked on Madara, watching for an opening, and prayed that Kakashi's rage at Danzou would strengthen and not weaken him tonight.

* * *

Sai slipped down from the roofs and landed lightly in front of Cat, their current Commander. "No sign of the intruders in the inner village on my sweep," he reported.

"Strange that they're refraining from that," Cat murmured. "The black one that goes through earth could reach the civilian shelters; it would be a far more efficient strike than all this." He flicked disdainful fingers at the faint commotion beyond the walls they could hear even in the administrative quarter. "All right. Grab another route."

Sai nodded and picked another paper slip out of the bag tacked to the mission board with a kunai. It might not be the most sophisticated way to randomize their patrols, he thought with that new mental lilt that sounded just a little like Kakashi-senpai in his head, but it was fast, portable, and unbreakable and ANBU knew the value of that. "Section six, outer ring," he read off the slip and looked over at Torune. "Tracker bug still good?"

"Good for two more sweeps," Torune agreed, perfectly calm even though Sai knew it probably frustrated him to be relegated to communications during an attack like this. He approved. All of Root was held back from the most critical work right now, but that was no excuse for losing discipline. Which was, after all, why Fuu was confined completely at this moment and likely several times as frustrated as any other member.

And then Torune stiffened. "Second attack at the south gate," he said, voice sharpening. "Targeting the Hokage and Kakashi. It's Madara." He cut off abruptly for a moment, and Sai saw him swallow and breathe in slowly. "And Danzou with him."

Mission awareness spiked in Sai's senses, sharpening them, crystallizing the night around him. "Are all of Root accounted for?" The question whipped out before it was even complete in his mind.

Torune's mouth tightened faintly as he listened to his network of insects. "Fuu. Hyou. Shin." A pause. "Kana. Terai, yes." A longer pause. "Dajimu and Tera are out of their patrol areas and near the south wall."

"General signal," Cat snapped, "all ANBU to the south gate!"

Sai was already running.

* * *

Kakashi danced with his opponent, the deadly, precise dance of the elite who were trained to silent and perfect death. ANBU's dance. He had never thought to take up these steps again, but for tonight, for this death, he would return.

This was the dance of fine techniques, of calculation and timing that slid down the edge of a knife, of silence and cunning, each move set against the shape and weight of the opponent with utmost care and blinding speed. Half the jutsu they started were never initiated, turned aside into another path as the ground between their minds shifted and shifted again.

There had been a time when Kakashi had found this exhilarating, better than any drink or drug. Tonight, it was water to a thirsty man, more necessity than pleasure but the only thing that would satisfy him nevertheless.

The Tiger's Teeth closed on nothing but the Diving Fisherbird, and in the wake of that clap of annihilation Kakashi and Danzou paused for one breath. "You've grown subtle indeed in your use of seals," Danzou observed, breathing considerably harder than he had when they'd started this Kakashi was mildly pleased to note. "But you still trust the wrong things." The twist of his fingers summoned, not only another seal from under his robe, cast straight on at Kakashi, but a flash of weapons on either side, ones Kakashi recognized—Dajimu's wire-strung kunai and Tera's darting flames. Kakashi's calculation of his possible counters sped down the lines of decision, and he bared his teeth behind his mask. He was going to get hit; Dajimu's wires could change the trajectory of his kunai too unpredictably to try to dodge when Tera's flames were waiting, shuriken buried in their hearts more often than not. And Danzou was too canny to be casting a bluff at him. That seal absolutely must be met.

He would be hit, as Danzou wished. But it wouldn't stop him. Danzou had forgotten who and what Kakashi was; Hound had been stopped by nothing when Kakashi had worn that mask. He pulled the Phoenix seal from his vest and activated it in a single motion, threw it to consume Danzou's attack, and spun into the oncoming kunai, preparing to choose which one he took as his hands flashed through the seals to shape water and counter the flames.

And then Sai was there.

It reminded Kakashi of the years he had loved this dance, the clean, perfect line of the leg sweep that brushed aside the wires and spun Sai through a complete turn to meet Tera's flames with a precise dousing seal. Sai touched down, poised, at Kakashi's feet and looked up at Danzou and his companions in Root, cool and distant. Kakashi heard others landing on the roofs inside the wall and dared a glance back, relaxing to see familiar masks and equipment. ANBU.

"Sai!" Danzou barked. Sai ignored him, not so much as an eyelash flickering in response.

"Dajimu. Tera." Sai's words dropped into the night light as leaves into a pool. "You break your oaths to think only of the good of the village."

"We aren't the oathbreakers," Tera shot back. "Danzou-sama acts for the good of the village. It's you who've lost your way, Sai."

"On the contrary," Sai answered quietly. "Hatake Kakashi will protect Konoha and all its people at any cost. He will wield ANBU correctly, when it comes into his hands." He stood, fluid, still ignoring Danzou, and stepped around to Kakashi's shoulder. "Do whatever is necessary," he said softly. "I will hold Dajimu and Tera."

Kakashi touched Sai's arm lightly as he stepped past. "I will." And he was grateful. Sai's words pulled him a little back from the edge, reminded him of what he was now as well as what he had been. The absolute ice of calculation eased a little around his heart, flowing again instead of freezing. ANBU, he was pleased to see from the corner of his eye, was deploying to cover Tsunade but leaving him room.

Danzou was scowling. "Your interference makes this less complete than it could be," he told Sai roughly. "But so be it." He pulled off his overrobe, with its woven-in wards and dozens of sequenced seals and flipped it open on the night wind, good hand flicking out to unfurl a seal scroll.

And as the robe fell to Danzou's side, covering him, he turned and cast the Lion Closing Roar straight at Madara.

Except that Madara was already gone, flickering out of the seal's center, and the sweep of his fan caught the lash of Tsunade's lightning whip even as a kick threw Danzou back against the tree trunk with bone crushing force. Kakashi could hear, in the agonized edge as Danzou coughed for breath, that ribs were probably broken.

"Shimura-kun, I was really hoping you would be more effective before it came to this," the old man sighed, strolling casually along the branches toward Danzou. "Ah, well, I suppose old age comes to us all. I'm sure you understand, though, why I can't leave you alive behind me now." He smiled down at Danzou, hanging his fan back over his shoulder with an easy swing that belied the remark about old age. "A shame that none of your erstwhile comrades will have any interest in leaving you alive at their backs either, hm?"

Sai stirred at Kakashi's side, and the hand that held his tantou was white knuckled in the lights of the village.

"Danzou-sama!" Tera lunged over the wall.

Madara turned his head and, without forming a single hand seal, blew an actinic torch of flame over him. What fell out of that fire wasn't breathing any longer. "Now then," he murmured, turning back to Danzou.

Calculations wound through Kakashi's mind, taking in the tautness of Sai beside him, the suddenly unbalanced stances of some of ANBU around them, the tightness of Tsunade's lips, so clearly torn between her own rage at what Danzou had done and her awareness of why he had done it this night. Kakashi had no doubt Danzou was a traitor, that he had truly been trying to kill both Tsunade and Kakashi. But it was ANBU watching this, and they also knew the stakes that a deep cover mission played for, knew by that last attack that Danzou hadn't completely abandoned Konoha. Death on a mission like that was also known and accepted, and Tsunade would never allow anyone to risk themselves saving Danzou now. Madara might even be distracted by killing Danzou and give them another opening to attack.

ANBU could do it. Could stand and watch and do nothing but hope for an opening. But what they were capable of wasn't always what they should be asked to do. A single conclusion locked into place, sure and solid, and Kakashi set his feet, watching Madara's chakra with his Sharingan.

He waited while Madara drew his sword, waited while it was lifted, listening to the uneasy silence around him, and as Madara committed to his downward cut, Kakashi moved.

The world telescoped as he flickered forward and he wound chakra through his feet to stop him on the branch between Madara and Danzou, around his arm to brace him against the force of Madara's cut as it rang off the steel on the back of Kakashi's raised fist.

In the shocked moment of silence that followed, he said quiet and clear, "You are not the executor of any Konoha shinobi who has not yet been declared traitor. Not _any_." He yanked Danzou over his shoulder by the front of his robe and leaped back for the wall, past a flight of kunai hastily thrown to cover his retreat.

And in the middle of that suspended moment when Danzou's own body was covering Kakashi's other hand from sight, he opened it and struck with the Gentle Fist, half crushing Danzou's heart.

The next moment he was past the wall and down on the first roof inside it, letting Danzou slide off his shoulder. The old man glared up at him, gasping, breath already laboring, face already gray. "Kakashi..." he rasped.

"You die as a shinobi of Konoha," Kakashi told him, cold and soft. "It's more than you deserve. But I won't have their hearts tainted by giving your life to Madara." He flicked a hand at the still figures of ANBU all around them, watching.

One of ANBU's medics flitted up to the roof with them and ran quick hands over Danzou before wincing behind his mask. "It's too much," he reported, clear enough to carry to all of them. "Tsunade-sama or Shizune-sama might be able to save him but this is beyond me."

Tsunade's jaw clenched, and she spoke without turning. "Shimura Danzou chose his actions, and I cannot endanger my village to let him avoid their consequences. Offer him mercy." Her voice was rough; no medic liked the last resort. But she was focused wholly on Madara again, unwavering, and Kakashi nodded to himself, satisfied.

"Shimura-san?" the medic asked quietly, knife in hand and glowing with the edge of his chakra.

Danzou's mouth twisted for a breath, but finally he nodded, eyes fixed on Kakashi. Kakashi watched him in return, standing straight and still, and carefully hid his rush of furious vindication as the knife went home.

A faint rustle ran through ANBU.

Cat joined them on the roof and told the medic, "Take his body back to the inner line and rejoin us as soon as you can." As the medic gathered Danzou's body up, Cat turned to meet Kakashi's eyes for a long moment. "Senpai," he said at last.

Kakashi's mouth quirked behind his mask. "Not for a long time, now."

"You have been again, tonight."

The thread of tension in Kakashi relaxed. Tenzou, at least, guessed what he had done and accepted it. "I will be what is necessary," he said quietly, the core of his service that had brought him to ANBU in the first place. Cat nodded, touching his fist to his chest in brief salute before they both turned and sprang back up to the wall. Sai met him there, turning back from handing off the securely bound bundle of Dajimu to another ANBU. He paused one moment to look up at Kakashi, dark eyes not quite as blank as usual.

After a long, still breath, Sai bowed in a formal salute.

"No need for formalities on a battlefield," Kakashi murmured, a little wry, suspecting Sai had realized too. Sai nodded and slipped around to guard Kakashi's back again.

Madara was standing with folded arms, engaged in his staring contest with Tsunade again. Kakashi watched the flare and jab of their chakra and thought Madara was still trying to lay illusion on her, even as ANBU was flickering through the trees around him, closing in. "Stubborn girl, aren't you?" Madara sighed at last, "Well, I suppose I'll need this after all."

The only seal he made was the basic activation, but Kakashi suddenly had to squint his Sharingan shut, nearly blinded by the vast upwelling of chakra that gathered in the forest behind Madara.

When it erupted upward into the shape of a nine-eyed demon, Kakashi couldn't quite manage to be surprised.

* * *

Sakura had just returned from stringing an extensive trap through the trees and Naruto was arguing with Nine-tails over why they couldn't abandon their post to go hunting the corruption he scented when Muta suddenly stiffened.

"Second attack, at the south gate, on the Hokage and Kakashi-san," he relayed. "It's Madara."

 _I told you so!_ the fox snapped, and Naruto whirled, poised to sprint and never mind the damn white and black bastards. That was his teacher over there!

Sakura snatched his arm. "Naruto, we can't abandon our position! If the first attackers get through a hole in the line here they have a clear path to the civilian shelters!"

"Perimeter to hold their positions," Muta confirmed. "ANBU is moving to support the Hokage."

The fox whined and Naruto nearly whined with him, vibrating with both their needs to go, to find Madara and destroy him.

"Naruto." Sakura slid both hands into his hair and turned his head toward her, holding his eyes. "Listen to me. Tsunade-sama isn't reckless. She has our very best going to help her, and Kakashi-sensei is there too. Right now, we're needed more here."

Naruto took a shaky breath and leaned into her, steadying himself against her presence. "Okay," he agreed, husky.

 _Interfering female,_ the fox growled, glaring in the back of his head. He kept tugging Naruto's eyes toward the south, straining to see/smell/hear/know what was happening there.

Sasuke was tense, too, jaw set even as he kept scanning their assigned area in silence.

Seconds dragged past like minutes, like hours, and Naruto waited. Jittered. Flexed his hands and tapped his toes, and briefly wished for the tails so he could lash them. Bit his lip and wondered what was happening, and fidgeted until Sasuke growled at him to cut it out before Sasuke cut something _off_.

When chakra/scent/light exploded at the south gate, it was so massive it was still a shock.

"Naruto?" Sasuke grabbed for him as he stumbled and fell to his hands and knees on the top of the wall. "Naruto!"

A tremor shivered the wall under them.

"Summons," Muta snapped, crouched and tense. "It's Madara's summons, at the south gate!"

 _My kin,_ the fox whispered in Naruto's head like the first whisper of a typhoon wind. _He's bound my kin!_

"Oh fuck," Naruto said, very low. "It's the tailed beasts!"

It only took one glance between the three of them, and they were running, racing south over the roofs of the village.

* * *

Nara Shikaku swore viciously under his breath. He'd already had to leave his old teammates at the wall and pull back to the roof of the Hokage's Residence to coordinate while his Hokage was busy fighting monsters out of history with her own two hands. Now word came in that Uzumaki had left his position and was making for the south gate too, and that this might be a very good thing.

"Pull Kawanishi's team off the inner line to replace them," he snapped, "and Endou's to replace Shikamaru's team. Tell Shikamaru to get down to the south gate and coordinate that mess as best he can. At least," he added, exasperated, "there's a _chance_ Uzumaki will listen to him. Have the Hyuuga found the core of that damn black and white thing yet?"

"Not yet," Aburame Shibi reported calmly, head cocked just a bit as he listened to his insects.

Shikaku weighed needs in his head and blew out a breath. "Hiashi swore that some of his clan could protect themselves against Madara's insane illusions. Tell him to break some loose from the search and send them to the south gate, too. Contact Chouza and tell him to follow with any other Akimichi that can be spared to see about this summons. Ask Cat to send me back at least ten ANBU to search outside the wall for the first attackers."

And he would just have to pray, he thought, staring over the black slate tiles of the roof and toward the south, that he wasn't about to lose his Hokage. Again.

* * *

Naruto and his team cut through the commotion in the south quarter like it wasn't there, but all three of them jerked to a halt when they hit the top of the wall again.

"Oh shit," Sakura said, very quietly.

Too many things burned in Naruto's senses. The vast demon-shape with seven glaring eyes and two more closed was tearing through the ribbons of the biggest binding seal he'd ever seen with appalling ease. The vast trees of Konoha's valley bent like saplings under its feet. And in the increasing clearance, Tsunade lunged between lashes of fire, fighting hand to hand against a man in a shadowy robe with a huge fan. ANBU masks ringed them, but Tsunade and her opponent were moving too fast for anyone to intervene unless she pulled back.

"Madara," Sasuke said, low, sounding like someone had just hit him in the stomach.

Sakura caught his shoulder. "If anyone can beat him it's Tsunade-sama," she said, low. "It'll be all right."

Sasuke shook his head sharply. "I know, but... you don't know what he was! I don't know if even Tsunade can take him!"

"Trust her." Naruto wanted to say more, but the fox's attention kept dragging his eyes back to the demon. The demon who, he was starting to realize, must be holding the seven captured tailed beasts. Hosting them? Or were they bound down, the way some villages did between hosts?

Kakashi-sensei and an ANBU with a cat mask flickered up to the wall from the forest, both of them breathing hard.

"It's got their strength," the cat mask said, grim. "I can barely trip it, and I won't be able to hold it for more than an instant. We need someone to hit it right then, hard enough to stop it."

The summons was drawing on them, then. The fox snarled, and Naruto took a step forward. "We can hit it," he said quietly.

"That's what Madara is probably counting on." Kakashi looked over at them, one eye black and one red, but both hard. "It's too risky."

"But I can help Nine-tails keep him out!" Naruto argued, waving a hand sharply at the demon. "How else are we going to beat that?!"

Kakashi actually smiled, if a lot more grimly than usual. "I think the answer to that is just coming."

Shikamaru's team touched down beside them, and another Akimichi was a breath behind them. One more breath, and Hinata and Neji arrived too. Shikamaru glanced around, taking in the destruction and the litter of broken techniques. He grimaced and turned to Kakashi-sensei. "Do we know what that summons can do, yet?"

"We know it's got seven of the tailed beasts sealed inside it, and can use their power, if not their particular abilities," Kakashi said, looking out over the increasingly flattened swath of forest, fires starting here and there from Madara's deflected attacks. He nodded to the cat mask. "Cat can bind it, but only for a few seconds before it breaks free."

Shikamaru took a slow breath, in and out, eyes dark. "Chouji. Chouza-sama. Can you coordinate an attack on it at that speed?"

Chouza laid a hand on Chouji's shoulder. "We can."

Cat nodded. "Signal me when you're ready to strike, then, and I'll hold it still as well as possible."

"Go," Kakashi told them and turned to the Hyuugas as the three of them vanished over the wall. "You're here to back up Tsunade-sama." His eyes flickered toward the trees through which Tsunade and Madara were stalking each other. "I don't know, yet, what you'll be able to do; keep an eye on them."

Neji nodded silently and drew his cousin a little way down the wall, both of them watching Tsunade and Madara with Byakugan activated.

"This is the biggest clusterfuck ever," Shikamaru muttered, kneeling on the wall beside Ino, eyes flicking over the forest and their forces. "I'm just mentioning."

"Eloquent," Kakashi noted dryly. "And likely accurate."

Naruto was chewing his lip, trying to listen to the mission banter, trying not to let the fox's lengthening silence alarm him. He had _such_ a bad feeling about this.

A red flare burst over the trees, and suddenly Chouji and Chouza were rising out of the trees, almost as tall as the demon. Lines of darkness whipped up from the ground, wrapping around the demon's legs, thickening as they went.

"Wood jutsu," Sakura said, sharp and startled.

"Induced," Kakashi answered, voice distant. "And not even Hashirama himself could have held seven of the beasts at once."

For one breath, though, it was holding, and Naruto bit down harder on his lip, hoping. Chouza charged the demon from the front, massive arms wrapping around it. "Chouji!" he thundered. Chouji was coming from behind, and even Naruto could see the perfect timing of it, the moment when Chouza braced to keep the demon from recoiling, from wasting any of Chouji's strength. The crack of Chouji's fist hitting the demon's back echoed off the wall.

For a moment, Naruto thought it might work.

In the next, though, the demon roared wordlessly and threw both the Akimichi back, snapping the wood binding like string. Sasuke cursed under his breath and Shikamaru's jaw tightened.

The fox was still silent.

 _You don't think anything but us can stop it, do you?_ Naruto asked.

 _I am the strongest of the tailed beasts, and there are seven of my kin locked in that thing._ It wasn't an answer. Except that it was.

 _So we'll do this for them,_ Naruto promised. _And for my important people, here. Okay?_

The fox stirred, the sense of him uncoiling up Naruto's spine and down his fingers. Naruto reached out and touched Kakashi-sensei's arm.

"Tell Tsunade-sensei I'm sorry I couldn't get her permission first, okay?" he asked softly.

Kakashi was still for a long moment, in which Chouji, Chouza, and Cat landed back on the wall, all of them wincing and moving carefully. Kakashi finally sighed. "Try not to step on any of our people while you're out there."

"We'll follow as soon as you're done changing," Sasuke said, stepping up beside Naruto. "If the Nine-tails will accept it, I can help shield you from Madara."

The fox snarled and Naruto winced, and Sakura put her fists on her hips, glaring. "I'm very sure that such an old and experienced spirit will have at _least_ as much sense as a yearling _squirrel_ and will accept that assistance," she said in a dire tone.

The fox didn't quail, which was better than Naruto managed when Sakura spoke like that, but there was a sense of grudging respect from him, if not exactly agreement. "We'll try," Naruto promised.

"Sasuke, what are you going to have to do, to shield them?" Shikamaru interrupted. After a silent moment, Sasuke sighed.

"I'll have to be... with Naruto and the Nine-tails. In our minds and spirits."

"Thought so." Shikamaru was actually smiling, just a little and crookedly. "Well, we're used to that. We'll cover you." His eyes locked on Sasuke's, almost as black as his in the darkness. "So don't hold back."

Sasuke smiled back, dark and sharp. "I never hold back."

Shikamaru snorted. "Yeah, Team Overkill, that's the three of you." He beckoned Ino and Chouji closer with a tilt of his head and the three of them whispered and gestured among themselves for a minute, hands tracing sight lines and formations.

"Be careful," Kakashi told Naruto and his team, quietly. All three of them nodded, and Naruto would bet that all four of them knew how little that would probably help.

Naruto stepped to the edge of the wall in the flickering night, hearing Kakashi-sensei behind him, telling the Aburame here to call the shinobi in the south forest back behind the wall and warn everyone the Nine-tails was on their side this time. He breathed slowly, stepping 'down' in that way that took him to the place the fox lived. This time, not blinded by the pain of tearing out the inner seal, he could feel the fox rising past him, a brilliance of fire and wind and the power of mountains, and he leaped out from the wall, arms spread like he could embrace the night itself. As the fox rose over him he felt like maybe Nine-tails was doing just that. The fox's chakra swept through him, around him, merciless and wild, and now it was the fox's head lifted in the wind, the fox's paws on the ground.

And yet... this time it was Naruto too. He wasn't in darkness. He felt the wind, the ground, the lash of the fox's tails. It was a little softened, a little distant, but it was all there.

So he saw when Madara turned from his fight with Tsunade. She took the opening instantly, landing a punch that tore away Madara's arm and shoulder and slammed him into the ground hard enough to crater it. Black fire blasted out from where he landed, speeding away in two directions, ringing in the demon and Nine-tails. And Madara.

And when Madara stood up, he was whole again.

The only thing that shook Naruto out of his shock was feeling Nine-tails' chakra slowing, around him. They were looking right at Madara, he realized, and yelled, "Nine-tails! Oi, stupid fox, look away!"

He got only the faintest, distracted grumble back.

"Oh fuck." Naruto reached out with immaterial hands and seized the fox's chakra, the chakra he was as familiar with now as his own, or Sakura or Sasuke's, and fought to surge it and shake off the Sharingan, to reclaim his partner's mind.

* * *

Kakashi-sensei slammed a fist down against the wall, actually cracking the capstone. "Regeneration," he spat, red eye fixed on where Madara had vanished behind the black flames.

"We have to get through," Sasuke said tightly. "I'm going to try to go over."

Sakura snapped out of her suspended moment of horror, and closed a hand around his arm. "Wait." She took a slow breath as he rounded on her, staring out at those flames. "Wait. I'll get you through."

"How?" Shikamaru demanded sharply. His fingertips were set together and Sakura could almost see the thoughts racing behind his eyes.

Her mouth quirked. "Why do you think I asked Jiraiya-sama to teach me some of his sage techniques?" she asked softly. From the moment she'd seen Amaterasu for the first time, from the moment she'd heard Madara still lived, she'd feared they would see it again if Madara ever came; it was the perfect answer to the problem of keeping Leaf's shinobi away while Madara subdued the Nine-tails.

Her response wasn't as perfect, but she thought it would work.

"Sakura," Kakashi said, low, from the edge of the wall, eyes fixed on the still figure of the Nine-tails, "you don't have any helpers for that one." It wasn't a denial; just a reminder of the risk she ran.

"It doesn't matter." She let Sasuke go and stepped to the edge of the wall herself. "Don't count on me for anything after this," she tossed over her shoulder at Shikamaru and didn't look back around until he nodded slowly.

"Sakura." Sasuke's hands slid over her shoulders as he came to stand close against her back. "Tell me what you're going to do."

She stood straight, breathing deep and steady to ready her chakra. "I'm going to remind the world that this fire doesn't belong in it. I don't know whether I'll be able to put it out or just suppress it for a while, so when I tell you to go, go fast."

His hands tightened. "All right." Softer, "I'll keep him safe."

Sakura smiled into the night, heart sure and strong even as her breath wavered in her throat. "Yes." She took one last breath and let her hands flow through the familiar series of her activation and spread them out toward the half a _ri_ of land she needed to protect.

Using nature energy was not a matter of rote, where the right seals and concentration would always produce the same form. She thought perhaps Jiraiya-sama was right when he called it a matter of faith. She opened her own spirit to the inrush of utter wildness and shaped it with her heart, with her need, with the bared strength of her own life and will, holding the open spiral of this jutsu's seals, its shape, steady in her mind. Her three-ply chakra flowed into the shape easily; too easily. The danger of this technique was not burning out her subject, this time. No, this time it was the momentum, that it might sweep her away in the exaltation of being one with everything the world _was_ , here on this night. This was a technique to touch, not only the energy of the land, but it's own chakra.

"Earth," she whispered into the bell of her jutsu, and almost cried out as it resonated, rang out over the forest drawing her chakra to it's own, recalled the very soil to itself. "Wood," she gasped, trembling, wrestling back the need to open her heart wider, to give all of herself to the trees as the smallest particles of them recalled what world they belonged to and shrugged free of the hell-grip of Amaterasu. "Wind..." It was almost a moan, and she sank to her knees as the air sang before the gate, dancing away from the all-consuming black fire, spreading her chakra just as fine and thin as it was.

Amaterasu guttered and sank, and finally flickered out.

Sakura gulped a breath, and pulled herself just far enough back to gasp, "Go!" Sasuke shot forward off the wall without question or hesitation, flickering across the seared strip to land at the Nine-tails' feet. Tsunade-sama was already lunging straight for Madara again. Shikamaru's team followed Sasuke, and relief swept through her. That was the last thing she needed to wait on. Sakura prepared to pry herself out of this wild jutsu before she forgot why she should want to.

An intrusion slid through the earth that her chakra embraced, and she flinched.

"Sakura?" Kakashi asked at her side, low and sharp, and she could feel his chakra too, like this, could almost see the hand seals poised and waiting in his palms to try to pull her out.

"Intruder," she gasped, and, after a moment's struggle to remember the word, "First!"

"The first attacker is coming into this area?"

She nodded, distantly relieved that Kakashi-sensei had understood, and closed her hands into fists, trying to hold onto that trace, to track it, even as it seemed to split.

"Earth," she rasped again, fiercely, to her jutsu and rocked back on her knees with shock when nothing happened. Her control wavered for a ragged breath and she gritted her teeth.

"I'll try to see them," Hinata's voice said softly on her other side. "Sakura-san, can you hold on?"

Sakura swallowed and nodded, and almost lost her grip anyway when Hinata pressed gently against her back and her hands came to rest on Sakura's forearms, three fingers down from her wrists. "Permit me," Hinata whispered. "Life of our land, Will of Fire, permit me."

The words resonated delicately through Sakura's technique, and Hinata's chakra slid down the path they made, light as a bird on the wind. Sakura reflected distantly, through her amazement that anyone else could affect the technique without burning them both out, that now she understood why Neji had consented to follow his cousin.

"All of them," Hinata murmured, distant. "All of them are coming. But they are only two. Only two that we need to find."

Yes. Yes, that made sense of what Sakura felt from the earth, from the trees. Two, and then a... haze around them. She could feel exactly where those two were, like she'd have felt a knife against her skin, but there were no words for it! Nothing she could tell them!

"I see it," Hinata whispered, and then, sharper. "I see them! Neji! They're coming for the Hokage!"

Abruptly she was gone and it was only Kakashi speaking to Sakura, low and sure. "Bring it down, Sakura. The technique. Let the pattern go. Come back, Sakura, your team is going to need you. Can you hear me? Naruto and Sasuke are going to need you."

Kakashi-sensei, Sakura decided, _really_ fought dirty. But he had a point. She let go one finger at a time, pulled herself away bit by bit from the wild, singing _being_ of the world's chakra and finally, with a deep, sobbing breath, snapped her hands together in her deactivation.

The brilliant awareness of the world went away and it was only with her eyes that she saw Hinata and Neji land on either side of Tsunade, spin like water flowing, and strike in perfect unison. A black figure and a white one flew back from their hands and were pounced on by ANBU as Tsunade bared her teeth at Madara and punched the tree he was in hard enough to fell it.

Sakura shuddered as the cold of chakra depletion hit her and heard Kakashi calling sharply for a medic as she fixed her eyes on the enormous, nine-tailed fox that was finally moving again, rearing up as if to claw the moon from the sky.

* * *

Sasuke barely spared Madara a glance as he landed at the Nine-tails' feet, barely even noticed Shikamaru's team following him. He had more important things to worry about right now. The fox had shaken its head a little when Amaterasu died, and he hoped that meant Naruto was already pushing Madara's control back. He sucked in a breath and shouted up at them, "Naruto! Nine-tails!"

After a moment of heart-sinking stillness, the fox turned its head and looked down at him.

There were no seals associated with what Sasuke did next, no gestures to key it, but he reached out anyway, open hands stretched up toward the huge red eyes that met his as he cast his chakra out to touch the Nine-tails' and walked forward along that path.

There was another chakra already there, icy and sticky, flowing in strange curls and hitches to Sasuke's sight. He slipped past it, contorting to avoid its touch like he would have climbed through a thicket of poisonous vines. When his chakra met the Nine-tails' at last he gasped with the blaze of it and stumbled through brightness for a few steps before Naruto's hands caught his arms.

"There you are, finally, Sasuke we gotta hurry up, this asshole's Sharingan almost has a grip on Nine-tails!"

"Yes, I noticed that," Sasuke muttered, straightening. He was standing on a plain of water, broken here and there with rock formations, under a brilliant sky. It was the first time he'd walked into a mind so clear and unconstrained.

There was also a constant, harsh growl rolling out far over his head. He looked up to see the Nine-tails again, glaring down at him with furious suspicion. "Look," he said, running a frustrated hand through his hair, "I _swear_ I don't want to control you! You're contracted with my own teammate!"

Naruto looked up at the fox, bouncing urgently on his toes, "Yeah, it's okay, really! I mean you're kind of like me right now, and Sasuke wouldn't do anything bad to me, right?"

"Humans who have power use it," the fox snarled.

"Not like this," Sasuke snapped, cutting his hand through the air, abruptly almost as angry as the fox; he was living his life as best he could to make himself and Uchiha into something that wasn't Itachi, wasn't Madara, and no furry, nine-tailed menace was going to say otherwise. "Not to harm my own!"

Narrowed red eyes stared down at him. "Your own?" the fox finally rumbled, low and dangerous. "You would _dare_ claim that I am your own?"

"You live inside someone who is," Sasuke growled back. "You've helped him. For that, I'll protect you as I would him."

The fox's glare sharpened. "As you would him?" Abruptly, he leaned down, and a nose half as tall as Sasuke was sniffed at him, hard enough to tug at his clothes. When the fox drew back, it actually sat down and cocked an ear at him. It looked thoughtful. "I see." A lot of the snarl was gone. "You love him."

Sasuke stared, caught entirely flat-footed. "I... what?" The thought that the Nine-tails had figured that out from how he _smelled_ rose embarrassingly in his mind.

"My idiot kit of a host," the fox specified, watching him closely. "You love him. That's why you do this."

Sasuke flushed, really not wanting to have this conversation with a demon beast, for crying out loud, and also not while Naruto was listening, watching them with wide eyes. The intuition his clan sharpened on the Sharingan was jabbing him hard, though, so he took a breath and made himself say out loud, "Yes."

The Nine-tails lay down on the surface of the water. "Hm."

"Is that what it takes, for you to accept?" Sasuke asked quietly.

Naruto's eyes widened further, and he spun around to point at the fox. "That's it! That's what it is! That's why you keep getting all mellow and shit at the weirdest times!"

The fox eyed its host with some exasperation, and Sasuke was reminded of all the times Naruto had compared the two of them. "I would say, rather, you keep having love-fests at the strangest moments. Though I suppose life and death combat does tend to remind one of the important things." His eyes narrowed. "And if you'd just said that my part of the bargain was to help you protect what you love, instead of blithering on about your 'important people', this could all have gone much more smoothly. _Humans_."

Naruto turned a little red. "You don't just _say_ things like that outright, that's... that's... I mean..."

"Idiot kit," the fox growled, ears at a resigned angle.

Sasuke took a slow breath and stepped forward to rest a hand on Naruto's shoulder, looking up at the fox. "I love him," he admitted, low. "And I love Sakura. My teachers. A lot of the village is full of total idiots, but I... I love the quarter where I live. I never thought I would, again. Will this let you accept my protection?" Part of him flinched to be saying all this out loud; this was the truth he held silent in his heart. But if this was what it took to guard his place and his people, he would do it.

The fox's lip curled and it glanced away over the water and stone of this space. "As long as you don't start thinking I'm yours or any such nonsense. Yes, yes, get on with it."

Naruto smacked the fox on the shoulder affectionately. "Well then you have to look over here, already. Quit being difficult."

Nine-tails bared his teeth at Naruto, but Sasuke could tell it was mostly for show. "Insolent brat." He did meet Sasuke's eyes again, though, and this time when Sasuke cast forward his chakra it sank into the fox's and the Sharingan's marks faded up into the Nine-tails' eyes. The fox shuddered the whole length of his body, ears flat against his skull.

"My protection," Sasuke promised, very softly, already feeling the drain on his chakra of holding this seal over such a vast being, and feeling too the cold corruption of Madara's chakra against his, like rotting flesh pressed against his own. He pushed back against that violently, and the fox's ears unfolded just a little. That gave Sasuke an idea, and before he could think better of it he pulled Naruto tight into his arms. "My protection," he whispered again, against unruly yellow hair. "Our strength is your shield. Defend our home."

Naruto's arms locked fiercely around him, nearly crushing his ribs, but that was all right. Besides, the fox's ruff was smoothing, no longer bristled. Sasuke smiled, wryly; whatever worked. He pushed Naruto a little away. "Get going, then."

Naruto laughed and Sasuke found himself back kneeling on the dirt and splintered wood outside the south gates with Shikamaru's team standing guard over him. One of the black intruders was melting into the dirt a little ways off. Ino glanced down at him.

"He's back," she said, clipped, and then, seeing the direction of his gaze, smiled tightly. "One of them tried to attack you just before Neji and Hinata nailed the two that controlled them all. Not a problem."

Having seen the three of them work together, their whiplash speed and precision, Sasuke could believe it.

"Is your technique still running or done?" Shikamaru asked, eyes still scanning the woods around them.

"Still running," Sasuke said, breathing slowly and focusing the outflow his chakra to keep his seal on the Nine-tails, over the flowering of its rage and against the increasing pressure from Madara.

"We've got you," Shikamaru said quietly. "Just work."

Sasuke nodded and focused his eyes on the fox and nothing else as it bounded toward the nine-eyed demon.

* * *

Tsunade's heart had turned to ice for one moment, when the marks of the Sharingan appeared over the Nine-tails' eyes. But in the next she heard Madara's snarled curse and saw the fox lunge toward the demon to rip at its arms, and knew they might just win this one after all. She spun in between Madara and Sasuke as the old man turned to make for his descendant with an unholy light glaring in his eyes, and threw him back with a scything kick.

And she knew, _knew_ damn it, that she'd broken his breastbone with that kick, but it was whole when he came back at her and she couldn't sense his chakra doing anything that would account for it! Madara smiled nastily at her bared teeth as they closed again in a whirl of fire and knives and the wild strength that had always lived in her bones.

"Ironic, don't you think?" he breathed. "Senju's strength undone by... Senju's strength."

"What the fuck are you babbling about?" Tsunade pulverized the ground under his feet to dust and leaped after him as he retreated.

"Before I left Hashirama at the Falls, I took a sample, you see." Madara spread his arms wide and she felt the hideous, insinuating strength of his chakra again, shaped by that damn Mangekyou Sharingan. Forcing it out of her own chakra pathways distracted her for one crucial moment and she snarled as she pulled his shuriken out of her leg.

And then she actually heard what Madara said. A sample. From her grandfather, the strongest user of Wood natured chakra the world had seen in generations. Something that could defeat her own combat strength. Decades of knowledge in the healing arts gave her the key that connected the two things. "Regeneration," she whispered.

"You always were a clever child, if led carefully enough," Madara murmured.

Fury blazed up in Tsunade's heart like the sun, fury too wild for any shouting to encompass and so her voice was low when she spoke. "First you betray him, and then you steal from his very blood."

"I would never have had to if he'd just seen sense." Madara's words were soft and calm and mad. "But it's all right. I will rule the world, once all the tailed beasts are mine, as it should have been from the start. And he will be with me, as it should have been."

Tsunade locked down a shudder of horror. There was no time for that; she had a duty to perform, here. Not only for her village but for her blood.

Yes. Her blood. That was the way.

She screamed as she lunged at Madara, letting her punch go slightly awry, letting him retreat with a laugh. While he was laughing, she sliced her fingers on her own kunai and swiftly traced seals in blood over her palms, down her arms. She drew the last one over her own heart.

"You shouldn't have told me that," she said softly, gathering her chakra and her will.

"Ah?" Madara hovered just out of range, taunting. "And why not?"

Tsunade's hands flashed through twenty-eight seals and ended in the Snake. "Because blood calls to blood." She lifted two fingers in the initiation and, as fire spread down every vein from her heart, released her Yin seal. The lines on her arms blazed up and there were no more words.

Blood Song was a forbidden technique, locked away for three generations since the villages were first founded. It was a legacy of the warring clans period, and the cruel expedients that century of conflict had driven the clans to, to protect their own blood. To control their own blood.

Madara fought her, silent and vicious now. She could feel his chakra prying at hers, feel the dizzy warping of the world as he tried to tear himself free of her grip, and she spent her own chakra like water into the desert to hold him, to reach into his body and claim what was hers. To tear it away from him—all that was blood of Senju.

And perhaps the years had taken their toll on this one of the most powerful ninja ever known, regeneration or no, because at last she felt it. As her vision darkened, she saw it. The red eyes fixed on hers lost focus, and the steel and stone chakra that wrestled with hers slackened. The blood of her clan slid into her control and she tore it free in one last burst of rage.

When she could see again, she was on her hands and knees, breath heaving hoarsely in her chest. In front of her was a withered body, barely more than skin stretched over bones, with red eyes. Still conscious eyes.

Tsunade's long years of training prodded at her, and her grandfather's teaching joined in. The way of Senju was one of honor and compassion. That was why she had become a healer. Every breath Madara took was wracked, cut short with the pains and breakdowns of decades all catching up at once. She should, at least, ease Madara's passing. The practical part of her knew she didn't have the strength to offer any kind of mercy, but breath, at least, remained to her. Breath and time for a few words. "My grandfather loved you," she whispered.

And then her lips pulled back off her teeth in a hard smile. "I don't."

Madara's eyes glinted at her past the Sharingan for a moment, before he closed them. Another shuddering breath, and the body before her was still and empty.

Tsunade let her head fall, sliding down to the ground, suddenly aware that her transformation had drained away and every bone in her body ached like something was gnawing on them. A rest would be good. Yes.

"Hokage-sama!" Gloved hands caught her, turning her gently, and even through the masks she could hear the hisses of her ANBU around her, shocked. She imagined she didn't look too very different from the dead body right now.

It took two attempts before she managed to swallow and husk out, "Kakashi."

"I'm here." Her chosen successor knelt beside her, and she smiled just a little to see the straightness of his spine, the mission awareness that wouldn't let him show his fear for her or his relief that she still lived. Stubborn brat that he was.

"In command," she whispered through dry, cracked lips, vision starting to gray again. "Shizune. To me."

"She's coming." Kakashi looked up at the masks surrounding them among the dark trunks. "Will you accept my command until the Hokage recovers?"

Cat stepped forward. "We will."

"Then get the civilians out of the shelters and up to the roofs, and call the patrols in to guard them. I want every citizen of Konoha somewhere they can see what's happening at this gate. Bring the twenty strongest shinobi still uninjured here to the gate to support Naruto and the Nine-tails. Go."

ANBU vanished, except for the two medics already working on her, and Tsunade made a mental note to tease Kakashi later about what a good leader he would make. And then Shizune was beside her, eyes furious and wet, swearing at her in three dialects as her glowing hands pressed over Tsunade's heart. Tsunade just smiled, looking up past the trees as her vision faded, to where a giant fox lashed nine tails across the sky and attacked the demon that threatened their village.

* * *

This time it was different. This time Naruto wasn't in darkness, catching moments of action here and there. Instead he felt like he was sitting on a boulder on the water plain and at the very same time standing right behind Nine-tails' eyes as the fox leaped through Konoha's forest, savaging the demon. He could feel the flex of the fox's haunches, the clench of his jaw as he seized an arm and tore at it. He could certainly feel the shift of their chakra as the fox breathed a blast of fire at the demon, wild and exultant.

"How can you be calmed down by someone's love and still like destruction this much?" he wondered as they leaped to evade the demon's fist and the fox lashed out with a tail to throw it backwards.

 _You call this destruction?_ the fox sneered. _Pah! I raise tsunami and level mountains, kit. I bring fire and death and change, and I sweep corruption from this world. That's what I am!_

Tailed beasts, Naruto decided, were even weirder than noble clans. "Well you're not being very much yourself, then, are you?" he prodded. "I mean, after a mountain, one demon shouldn't be too hard to level." Secretly he was kind of wondering if the fox was drawing it out so he could keep his own form for longer. And he couldn't blame Nine-tails at all, but they had work to be getting on with, here!

 _You were the one who wanted me to be careful where I put my feet,_ the fox shot back, silkily. And then, with a deeper growl, _And watch._ He caught hold of the demon's arm again, shaking his head fiercely, and this time he actually ripped the arm all the way off.

There was no blood or anything like it. Nine-tails might as well have torn the arm off a statue, except for the weird, shifting glow that showed through the gap. "What's that?" Naruto asked warily, experienced enough by now to be suspicious of anything that looked this strange. It was usually bad news.

 _That demon is only a container._ The fox's tails lashed grimly. _It is animated by the strength of my kin, but it is not host to them or anything like. And what truly binds them lives inside it._

Naruto planted his hands on his hips, annoyed. "Well then why haven't you busted it up yet?"

There was enough roar in the fox's response that Naruto winced. _Because, you insolent brat, the moment I shatter the container the binding dragons will escape it! Even I can't catch seven fleeing prey in the same instant!_

And, if Naruto was any judge, the fox was immensely pissed off about that. "Okay, okay." Naruto patted the air soothingly with raised hands. "We'll figure something out. Look, what if we switch _really fast_ , and I can do binding seals..."

Someone coughed. It was a teacherly, pay-attention-children cough, and so startling in the circumstances that Naruto and the fox both blinked. The fox turned his head and there, standing on top of a tall pine, was Kakashi-sensei.

"Do excuse my cutting in on the conversation," he said blandly, "but if the binding elementals are not drawing a great deal of power from their captives, I believe we can help with that."

Naruto nearly fell off his boulder laughing. "You said it out loud! After all that pissy growling at me for talking out loud, you said it out loud!"

 _Shut up, kit,_ the fox rumbled, examining Kakashi-sensei, and Naruto heard him when he spoke, just a little bit distant or muffled. "Help how, little shinobi?"

Kakashi spread his hands. "If you can shatter that demon, I think we have enough people to catch seven dragons at once."

"Only to bind my kin again." The fox's lip curled up in the start of a snarl, and Naruto was really kind of impressed that Kakashi-sensei was still looking the fox steadily in the eye instead of backing up.

"Have you gained nothing from your own contract, youko-san?"

Naruto actually felt the fox's ear tilt with startlement, and then Nine-tails threw up his head and laughed like thunder. "I see where the kit gets his insolence from." He looked down at Kakashi again, teeth bared. "Very well, shinobi. Ready your people."

This time Naruto felt clearly the wild surge of chakra as the fox tipped his head up and breathed out, building a ball of force over his mouth. He really hoped Kakashi-sensei wouldn't let people get too close too soon. The demon had pulled itself back to its feet and was coming for them again, remaining arm spread wide, mouth gaping as if it wanted to take a bite out of Nine-tails. The hunger in that silent charge send a shiver of nerves down Naruto's spine, and he found himself reaching out, adding his chakra to the fox's until the ball of it roiled. He could feel the fox's approval and all nine of the fox's tails spread in a fan to shape their attack.

The demon was three strides away when the fox whipped his head down and released the sky-shattering blast of power.

Demon-shattering, too. Naruto punched the air, right along with the fox's howl of triumph, as blasted fragments scythed outward into the forest.

And then they were surrounded by nine huge dragons, colorful and transparent like glass ornaments, seven of them wrapped like knots around seven tailed beasts.

That, and by shinobi leaping out of the trees.

* * *

Temari was the first one to call out her target, as the colored dragons started to rush apart from each other. "Indigo!" and Shikamaru knew exactly what the imperious glance she flicked at him meant.

"Massive pain in the ass," he muttered. They'd only just gotten Sasuke back up to the wall, after all, and the stubborn bastard refused to terminate his seal on the Nine-tails and hadn't been any help at all. "What do you need me for?"

"To hold it still so I don't hit the One-tail," Temari snapped. "Hurry up."

Shikamaru groaned. He'd known it.

"Oh quit complaining," Ino told him, hip-checking him in Temari's direction. "I'll make sure Sasuke doesn't kill himself with stubbornness. Go on."

Shikamaru muttered under his breath about pushy women, glumly reflecting on how much his father was going to tease him about this when he heard. But he knelt by Temari as she coiled into a leaping stance and set his hands in the seal to initiate Shadow Binding. "Someone give me a flare!" he called. At least seven people sent up bursts of fire from the roofs behind him, and he knew in that moment that Kakashi-san had been wise. The village wanted to save itself, not just be saved, and those who helped in this last part of the fight would remember fighting alongside the Nine-tails.

He drove his shadow across the broken trees to lock around the indigo dragon and set his teeth hard at the tearing resistance. "Do it fast," he gritted out.

Temari sprang into the sky like lightning in reverse, and her fan cut the air into vast knives around their target, over and over, slashing the dragon summons into pieces until the beast it held broke free with a roar. The One-tail was just fine, Shikamaru noted distantly, catching himself with a hand on the wall as he released his technique, panting for breath. She hadn't even scratched it.

Maybe that was why the tanuki just glared around before dissolving into a gritty blast of sirocco wind.

* * *

"Whoohoo!" Suigetsu hollered, leaping from the wall, and Choujuurou winced. He really hoped Suigetsu wouldn't get too carried away, and would remember what they were and weren't supposed to kill. That was always a bit of a problem with him.

"Tsururi-san, I think the light green dragon is for us," he told his other companion politely, seeing Suigetsu headed in the general direction of the dark green one wrapped around the Three-tails.

Tsururi, who had retrieved and thus inherited Ringo-senpai's Fangs, flexed her hands around the grips, grinning. "Let's do it."

The dragon they targeted was actually starting to unwind a little, perhaps understanding that it had enemies to face. "Pin the head!" Choujuurou called as they leaped, unbinding Hiramekarei. They needed to do this fast.

"I'll fillet it, you tenderize it!" Tsururi called back, and Choujuurou only refrained from rolling his eyes because this was the middle of a fight and despite what Ao-san thought, he was as dedicated a swordsman and shinobi as any of his lost senpai. So he just narrowed his eyes, shifting his balance in the air to let breath, chakra, force flow through him, through his sword.

Tsururi drove straight up from below the dragon, swords crossed, and caught it under the jaw, slicing in deep. "Now!"

There was no need for words. Choujuurou felt the moment, like a cord snapping taut, pulling his arm down. Chakra blazed around his blade, and he bared his teeth with satisfaction as he struck the dragon's spine and the force of it whiplashed along the summons' length. It uncoiled from the Six-tails like a pulled string and shattered into shards of green light.

And Choujuurou swore that, for one moment, the Six-tails _looked_ at them. At him. Perhaps even recognized them. It was only a single moment, though, before the great slug was diving through the sky, making east for the lakes and the sea. He shook himself, flicking the bindings back around his sword as he touched down on one of Konoha's great trees and looked to see how Suigetsu was doing.

Suigetsu was laughing among the fading mist of the dark green dragon, and Choujuurou thought he might be reaching out to pat the Three-tails as he went past. At any rate, the Three-tails spun on one foot, amazingly fast for a huge sea turtle, and smacked Suigetsu out of the air with one of its tails. Choujuurou winced at the plume of debris that rose from Suigetsu's landing and sighed as the Three-tails raged off through the woods and a squad of Leaf-nin darted over the wall to fetch Suigetsu.

He knew his unit was still rebuilding itself, and that the Mizukage was far too wise and compassionate to expect perfect decorum out of the Swordsmen in any case. But he wasn't entirely looking forward to reporting this to her.

* * *

Kiba had never seen his mother quite as pissed off as she was tonight. Apparently obaa-san hadn't been joking when she'd said Tsume had the instincts to lead the clan after her, and that mostly meant a whole damn lot of _Mine_. First it was hide and seek with those damn black and white things, then demons, now dragons and tailed beasts scattered all over their damn territory; it was enough to make his claws itch, too, and he wasn't any kind of alpha. His mother hadn't stopped showing her teeth all night.

"Yellow," Tsume snarled, and Kiba and Hana both sprang on her heels without protest, bounding over the trees toward the yellow dragon with their partners. Everyone was growling low in their throats as they leaped up to slash and worry at the dragon, pulling it loose from the beast coil by coil even as it hissed silently and slashed back with long talons.

When one of those talons hit one of the Haimaru triplets, Tsume threw her head back and howled, absolutely outraged by the scent of her pack's blood. Kiba yelped a little under his breath, and sprang with Akamaru to pin down the dragon's tail while his mother and Kuromaru whirled into a stupendous Fang Passing Fang and hit the dragon just behind its head.

And that was pretty much that.

The Four-tails shook itself loose from the fading coils and shot for the sky like a comet going home, and Tsume looked just a little calmer when she landed. Enough that Kiba and Hana both straightened up and smiled at her. She smiled back, showing her teeth lazily, and rested a hand on Kuromaru's back. "Well, come on, then. Let's see if any of these other slackers need help."

His mom was definitely scary, Kiba reflected as they bounded back toward the wall, but that was okay. He kind of liked it that way.

* * *

Kakashi watched, taut, as Konoha's uninjured jounin and their support dove outward from the south gate to catch the dragons the Nine-tails had broken loose. In some cases, that support was less than he would have liked.

"Come, my student! Let us defeat this foe with the fiery passion of youth!"

"Yes, Gai-sensei!"

Okay, not in that case, he had to admit. Kakashi spared a hidden smile for the sight of his 'rival' and Gai's student, spinning through Gai's extravagantly proclaimed Leaf Coiling Whirlwind with perfect synchronization. He'd almost swear the dull blue dragon's eyes bugged out as two explosive kicks landed on either side of its head. At any rate, it toppled, already fading, toward the ground, and the sleek form of the Five-tails sprang free and galloped east toward the faint beginning of dawn.

No, Kakashi wasn't worried about Gai. What he didn't like was Genma's insistence on taking on the orange dragon that held the Two-tails alone. He knew Genma had known that host, had respected her, but the hard light in Genma's eyes when he'd brushed off any assistance suggested there was something deeper there than he'd thought. That didn't make Kakashi a happy commander. Genma's expertise was with small weapons, and while his water knives were cutting deep, they weren't enough to disperse the dragon.

Just enough to enrage it.

Coil on coil slid free from the Two-tails as the dragon struck after Genma again and again. It was a virtuoso performance of speed and precision to evade and strike, over and over. Even so, Kakashi was poised to call for long-distance support from the watching shinobi whether Genma liked it or not. Just before the measure in his head that weighed Genma's need for revenge against his life tipped, though, one last coil slipped loose.

And the Two-tails struck.

With a yowl that echoed through the valley, the demon cat pulled free and spun to sink claws and teeth into the dragon, ripping it into orange mist. Finally, it stood, stiff-legged and bristling, glaring around the torn ground, and Kakashi had to bite back a curse as he realized Genma was standing right in front of it, out in the open at the top of a half-seared pine. He was _talking_ to the enraged Two-tails, and Kakashi's eye widened a little as he read the movement of Genma's lips.

 _I remember her. I remember you. We didn't realize, in time to save her. I'm sorry._

The cat stared down at him, and slowly it's hackles lowered. It leaned down to sniff at Genma, and Kakashi's hands wove through the long distance body-switching seals as fast as they ever had in his life, ready to swap himself for Genma, who seemed to have lost his mind.

The cat blinked and slowly dispersed into mist, curling through the trees and away.

Kakashi slumped, leaving the seals just barely uncompleted. "Going to give me a damn heart attack," he muttered, and gave Tenzou, standing beside him, a dour look at his faint breath of a laugh. "Easy for you to laugh. ANBU was never this kind of trouble."

From the angle of Tenzou's head, he was smiling behind Cat's mask. Only for a moment, though, before he stiffened. "I wouldn't be too sure of that."

Kakashi's head snapped around to see Anko diving down, short sword first, on the red dragon currently wrapped in the grip of her snake summons. It would have been the perfect finishing attack if the dragon hadn't torn its head free, jaws opening to meet her.

* * *

Anko bared her teeth as the dragon pulled its head loose. It was too late to alter her attack in any way but by aborting it completely and she was damned if she was going to do that. Down the throat it was!

She almost lost her aim when a water rope snaked around the dragon's muzzle and cinched it closed in one yank. In the next moment, she had to focus on her strike, knifing the dragon through the spine with all the force of her descent, but as soon as the damn thing burst into red shards she got a foot against the Seven-tails and pushed off to leap for the wall, ignoring the outraged insectile hiss behind her.

She touched down in front of Kurenai and glared. "What the hell was that?!"

Kurenai was bent over, hands against her knees, breathing hard. "That." A breath. "Was me saving." Another breath. "Your ass. You're welcome."

"You only got out of the hospital a few weeks ago!" Anko hollered, gesturing with her sword, other hand jammed on her hip. "You're still on restricted duties! You're still in the middle of postpartum chakra drain! Goddamn it, Kurenai!"

Jounin, honestly! She swore there was nothing as much of a pain in the ass as a jounin!

Kurenai straightened slowly, tossing her hair back. "I'm a shinobi of Konoha, and I was here when my comrade needed help."

Anko stared at her for a long moment and finally sighed. "Fuck." She slung an arm around Kurenai's shoulders. "Thanks. I owe you one." She watched as Kurenai relaxed, and promptly re-focused her chakra and swept the other woman up in her arms.

"Anko!" Kurenai yelped.

"And I'll just repay you now," Anko said sweetly as she sprang down inside the wall, "by taking you to the medic station to be checked over. Just to be sure." She grinned as Kurenai growled in her ear. A little irritation would help Kurenai recover faster. That was her story and she was sticking to it.

* * *

The fox watched the last of the other tailed beasts making tracks away from Konoha and shook himself all over, settling his fur. _Well?_ he asked. _Satisfied with our bargain, kit?_

Naruto looked through the fox's eyes at the slowly lightening sky and the mess of torn ground and splintered trees, at the shinobi lining Konoha's wall, and the ones who had just arrived on the cliff over the valley. All alive. He felt a last, weary brush of Sasuke's chakra as the Sharingan seal withdrew, and spotted the pink of Sakura's hair at the top of the wall. "Yeah," he said softly. "Yeah, I am. Thank you."

 _One more thing, then, before you go back to those 'important people' of yours._ The fox bent his head down to something on the ground, and Naruto made a disgusted face as he realized it was Madara's body, all withered and yuck.

"Eew!" he yelled as Nine-tails closed his teeth lightly over the body. "Ew, ew, ew, what are you doing?"

 _What I live for,_ the fox rumbled, and tossed his head up, throwing the body up in the air, battle fan and all. Naruto felt the ingathering of chakra as the fox inhaled, and then Madara's body was seared out of existence by the exhaled burst of fire against the sky. _Mm. Better,_ Nine-tails growled, tails lashing with satisfaction.

He tilted an ear at the faint cheers from the wall and snorted. _Humans. You can deal with that nonsense, kit._

Again there was a strange, sliding moment of rising, of feeling the fox brush past him, and Naruto was standing in a newly made clearing, blinking with his own eyes. Hearing the rising cheers of victory with his own ears. He laughed out loud as he took a running leap up two trees to the top of Konoha's wall and catapulted into Sasuke and Sakura's arms. He held on tight as the first rays of light slid over the horizon and touched Konoha's roofs to color and life again. His village. His people. Alive. He felt the fox settle, in his soul, and smiled.

His home, now and always.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The shinobi world starts to settle down again and reach for new equilibrium, and our heroes all get on with their lives.

Hidden Sound had to find a bigger room, this time, to fit in everyone who wanted to attend the summit. Or perhaps, Kakashi amended as he settled beside Jiraiya at one of the tables making up a large, hollow square, everyone who wanted to hear this after-action report. Even Hanzou of Hidden Rain had come, though it was always possible he just didn't want his heir going without him; as it was, Kanon sat demurely beside him, hands folded on the table in reassuringly plain sight, while Hanzou smirked at anyone who showed discomfort. Even the Master of the Waterfall had shown up, which only left...

The Raikage stormed into the room and pointed at Kakashi and Jiraiya. "Where is she?" he bellowed. "Where is that thieving little—"

Kakashi winced.

"Senju Tsunade," Jiraiya cut over A, straightening up with a forbidding look, "is still unable to travel after defeating Uchiha Madara by her own hand." _Sacrificing herself for the sake of us all,_ his tone implied, _and don't you feel like a horrible person for attacking a woman wounded in the line of duty_. Kakashi had to admire his delivery.

It wasn't a complete lie, either. Tsunade had torn her chakra pathways with the jutsu she'd used on Madara, and Naruto's chakra transfusions did little good if they couldn't mesh with her coils. He and Shizune had worn themselves to rags trying, and Tsunade was walking around and even yelling at her Council again. But it would be a while before she recovered her full strength, so here Kakashi was to deal with the leaders of the other villages in her place. He suppressed a momentary desire to swap himself for a handy scarecrow and take to his heels while he still could. Truthfully, it was far too late for that.

A opened his mouth and closed it again, glowering at them. B, coming in behind him, tossed Jiraiya a two-fingered wave and clapped his brother on the shoulder. "Come on, Aniki, it isn't that bad. You've still got us."

"Indeed," Terumii of the Mist said, raising one elegantly arched eyebrow, "considering that Hidden Cloud is one of only two villages to still have any Sacrifice at all, I think other considerations come first."

A grumbled audibly, but did stomp over to take a table, brother trailing behind him. Naruto grinned and waved from Jiraiya's other side, and B returned a thumbs-up.

"Since this is clearly a major concern," Naridasu of Sound murmured dryly, "may I ask how many villages have seen their erstwhile beasts at all?"

"The Six-tails has been seen on the islands again, not far from Mist's boundaries," Terumii volunteered. "The Three-tails... well. It has been sighted in the ocean, but seems determined to stay away from humans. It has been without a host for some time already; I suppose it isn't all that surprising."

"Interesting." The Tsuchikage rested his chin on his clasped fists, eying the rest of them under bushy brows. "The Four-tails has also returned to Earth, and he seems determined to roam over the whole damn country. He's scared one or two settlements empty, but he hasn't attacked anything yet. The Five-tails, we haven't seen."

"The One-tail will attack if he's approached," Gaara said quietly, "but, if left alone, he too he seems content to roam the country."

"The Seven-tails has not been seen at all." The Master of the Waterfall folded his arms, giving the room an impartial glare.

A's glare topped it effortlessly, and the muscles of his arms flexed menacingly as he folded them. "Our Two-tails is _malingering_ around Leaf." He looked at Kakashi's delegation like he suspected them of luring the Two-tailed Cat with a gigantic bowl of milk or something.

"She appears to enjoy the company of one of our jounin," Kakashi told him smoothly, all innocent smiles. "I believe," he added, over the Raikage's strangled sound, "that the man in question was fond of Nii, the previous host. Two-tails appears to remember her with some fondness as well, and enjoy his reminiscence about her. If you send a few potential hosts of similar temperament, to contract with her, I imagine she might be willing to return."

Most of the room was staring at him, and he smiled impenetrably back, stepping discreetly on Naruto's foot when it seemed like the boy might just stand up and cheer or something equally unsubtle. The other villages need to be coaxed, or possibly stampeded, into this. Warning the target ahead of time was always bad tactics.

"Contract?" the Kazekage asked quietly, fingers steepled, dark eyes sharp.

Kakashi flicked his fingers at Naruto and B. "Beasts in cooperation with their hosts get better results. That much is well demonstrated by now, I think." The other village leaders looked promisingly thoughtful at this appeal to self-interest.

"It's not just that," Naruto spoke up into the quiet, and Kakashi stifled a sigh. Timing. They had to work on Naruto's timing if he was ever going to do this political thing. "The tailed beasts... they all have their own stuff going on, you know? They have their own lives. Their own purposes." Naruto looked down and added softly, "I think that's why things have been so bad since the beasts were captured."

"So bad?" Oonoki was watching Naruto like a rock-cat about to pounce.

"Well, I mean!" Naruto waved his hands. "Sixty years, right? And wars every time you turn around! The villages were supposed to make things better, to keep everyone from fighting everyone else all the time, right?" He made an expressive face. "Yeah, that really worked. I asked Hinata; the Hyuuga records go way back. She said there are even more casualties now than there used to be, and even more destruction!"

"What do you think the beasts have to do with that?" Oonoki probed. "I suppose the greatest destruction comes when they're used but they haven't been used often at all."

"That's not it." Naruto pulled his hands through his hair, looking frustrated. Kakashi really wondered if he'd ever have the patience for diplomacy. Naruto was doing better than he'd expected, though, incorrigible honestly and all, so he leaned back and just watched.

"Nine-tails says his purpose is to destroy corruption," Naruto said finally. "He says that's what he _is_. An... an embodiment of that. And the last thing he wanted to destroy? Was Madara. You see?"

"Naruto." Gaara leaned forward. "Are you saying that the tailed beasts controlled _our_ corruption, before they were sealed?"

"Along with everything else." Naruto spread his hands wide. "It's hard to put into words. The fox... when he talks about it he gets all mystical and shit." And then he made a face and glanced just over his shoulder. "You do so," he muttered, and a moment later, a bit more loudly, " _You_ talked out loud, so _I_ get to talk out loud!"

Kakashi had to admit, the expressions on the faces around the table, as they watched Naruto backtalk to an ancient spirit of destruction, were pretty priceless. Business before pleasure, though. He crossed his ankles, looking as relaxed as possible. "Of course, this brings up the point that even the Nine-tails needed human assistance to defend it from human interference. That logic was sufficient to lead he and Naruto to form a contract. Surely similar logic would be compelling to the other tailed beasts."

"We would all have to be quick about it, before the beasts lose human language again," Terumii put in, thoughtful. "But it seems worth an attempt, especially considering the casualties that a forceful sealing usually entails."

"And the Five-tails hasn't been seen back in Waterfall, hm?" Amused malice gleamed in Hanzou's smile. "I imagine it would find Rain just as congenial."

The Master of Hidden Waterfall started up in his chair. "You dare!"

"On a related subject," Naridasu interjected smoothly, "several of the villages have expressed a desire for new treaties between us, for the extraction of S-rank criminals. I'm sure none of us wish something like Akatsuki's recent campaign to happen again."

As the Masters and Kage started bickering over this new topic, Kakashi murmured, "Naridasu's good."

"So are you," Jiraiya returned, just as quietly. "I think they'll all at least try the contract route."

Kakashi had to admit, that did seem to have worked. Which implied that, yes, he was going to be good at this.

Damn.

He sighed and slumped lower, hands shoved in his pockets.

* * *

"So?" Tsunade demanded, leaning over her desk, which made Shizune shift like she wanted to bundle Tsunade back into a recliner or something. "How did it go?"

"We got everything you really wanted," Kakashi reported. "Though I shudder to think what the first few actual cases of extradition are going to look like."

"Like a hot mess. Welcome to politics." He couldn't help twitching at that, and she relented a bit. "Good job. Go on, then, pick up a nice mission to settle your nerves. There are a few A-class missions gone begging while everyone heals up."

"Thank you, Tsunade-sama." He bowed a little and escaped. Maybe he'd see if ANBU needed an old hand along on something strenuous. They were almost back to treating him like a normal captain, now Tsunade was back on her feet.

Almost.

He landed on the railed walkway around the administration building's sixth floor and gripped the rail, head lowered. The really terrifying thing was, he'd started to not mind.

"Starting to catch up with you, hm?"

Kakashi berated himself for being so far gone he had let even someone of Jiraiya's skill sneak up on him; he'd better _not_ go into the field in this condition. "What is?" he asked as evenly as he could, looking over at the older man leaning against the rail beside him.

Jiraiya gave him a stern look. "The fact that you're pretty much a born leader, Kakashi-kun." He softened it with a small smile. "You've never been a loner, looking for the solo missions. Not like me."

Kakashi raised his visible brow. This from a man who'd been part of the village's most famous and stable team, at least until Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto came along? "Neither are you, Jiraiya-sama," he murmured.

Jiraiya actually grinned. "There, see? How many people in this village would call me on that to my face?"

Kakashi was starting to have a little sympathy with Sasuke's complaints about how sneaky Jiraiya could be, when he wanted to get a point across. "I know I'll be able to do it," he said quietly, looking out over the town's bright roofs again. "It's just... the whole village, this time."

Jiraiya sighed extravagantly. "Does no one actually listen to a word I say?" he asked the sky mournfully. "It isn't something you do alone!"

Kakashi's mouth quirked behind his mask. "Minato-sensei listened. I listened. Eventually." Quieter, he added, "But I'm not sure I'll have a choice, when Tsunade-sama steps down. Even if it's before her death, she won't want to interfere with my authority."

"Mm. I expect she'll retire to take over the hospital, yes." Another moment of quiet, and then Jiraiya added, softly, "I'll still be here for you, though."

That startled Kakashi enough to look over at him. "You..." He hadn't thought he was anything to Jiraiya that would call for that kind of promise.

"What's so surprising?" Jiraiya asked, brows arched. "You're the student of my student. That makes you my grand-student, so it's part of my job to look out for you." While Kakashi was blinking at this line of logic, he rubbed his chin. "Hmm. You're also Sasuke's teacher, so you're my teacher-in-law too. Two significant bonds! I don't see what you're startled by."

Kakashi opened his mouth and closed it again, feeling unbalanced. He wasn't used to being on this end of that kind of teasing.

Jiraiya smiled wryly and reached out to close a strong hand on the nape of Kakashi's neck. "Kakashi. I'll be here."

Kakashi froze, eyes wide. This... this was his gesture. His reassurance to his students or subordinates. It wasn't something _for_ him. But as Jiraiya shook him gently, he could feel his own shoulders relaxing, his head bending, feel himself leaning into the kind of support he hadn't felt in too many years. Not since... not since Minato-sensei; perhaps he should have wondered where Minato-sensei had gotten it from. He had to swallow before he could speak, and even then it was husky with that sudden awareness of connection. "Yes, Jiraiya-san."

"We'll find the ones to help you carry it, Kakashi," Jiraiya told him quietly. "Don't worry about that."

Kakashi just nodded, wordless, and let that reassurance soak in.

Maybe it would be all right, after all.

* * *

Sakura walked quietly down the river path to the Memorial Stone, fingers wrapped lightly around a spray of white bell-flowers.

This was the first time she'd visited the Memorial Stone like this, and Sasuke and Naruto had offered to come with her, but she'd told them to stay at home so she'd know where to find them afterwards. Neither of them were comfortable with the Stone. Sasuke had too many family names on it, and Naruto always felt guilty for the years when he hadn't recognized his own father and mother's names there. Sakura had no family on the Stone. The Haruno family had always been civilians; her grandparents had moved off the farms and inside the village bounds to keep shop, but none of their children had felt called to the field the way Sakura had.

But there were a handful of new names on the Stone, this season, and one of them had been a friend.

Noriko had been part of the Torture and Interrogation unit. Sakura had known her in passing for years, and she'd been present at Sakura and Ino's debriefing about interrogating Sai, when they'd returned from the Island Turtle. She'd taken them out, afterwards, and poured drinks into them until their hands stopped shaking. And she'd been there a few days later, when Sakura had come face to face with Sai in the entrance to Intelligence and frozen like stone, torn between the urge to attack him and the guilt of having screwed with his head to get information out of him. Noriko had been the one to know it was going to happen and the one who'd been there to talk Sakura down. To tell her she wasn't a horrible person for having done it, or a weak person for being disgusted by it.

"You did what you had to, when you had to," she'd said softly, watching the stream of water as she'd run a glass for Sakura. "That's the best any of us do." It had helped.

And now she was dead. She'd been killed by one of the black and white attackers, creating an opening for her team to destroy it.

Sakura stepped out from under the trees and hesitated, seeing someone else already at the Stone. But the slanting afternoon light struck messy silver hair that she recognized, though she hadn't known Kakashi-sensei was back from what Sasuke had dryly called his vacation mission. After a moment she walked up softly and knelt down in silence beside him. She laid down her bell-flowers by the lilies already there and bent her head for a breath, whispering Noriko's name in her heart and wishing her spirit all luck and speed. When she looked up, Kakashi-sensei was watching her, visible eye dark and quiet.

"She told me," Sakura said into that quiet, "the best we can do is what we have to, when we have to."

"Wise words," Kakashi-sensei murmured.

"I thought so." She looked down at the flowers. "So I wanted to thank you."

"Hm?" He cocked his head. "What for?"

Sakura slid her hands through the eighteen seals for silence, stilling the air completely for a meter in all directions. Into the faint flatness of their sphere of sound, not moving her lips, she said, "For killing Danzou."

Kakashi-sensei went completely, dangerously still beside her.

"I know I shouldn't speak about it, even with safeguards," she said, eyes still on the pale flowers. "But I needed to say this to you, and this seems like the right place to say it. Thank you. He was poisoning our village. What he did to Sai, what he wanted to do to Naruto..." her teeth set hard just thinking about it. "So. It needs to be said." She scooted around on her knees and bowed over them, formally. "Thank you for the care you have taken of us."

After a long moment, Kakashi-sensei sighed and touched her shoulder. "Where did you hear of this, Sakura?"

She straightened up and shook her head. "No one speaks of it. Not directly. But I think someone in ANBU is pulling for you, because it's all over half the village that you braved Madara's sword to rescue Danzou. Even though he had already taken fatal damage." She smiled crookedly. "And that's something you would do, Kakashi-sensei, which is why people are buying it. But I was there when you spoke to Sai, when you swore to bring Danzou down. I saw how furious you were. I can believe you didn't want Madara to kill him. But you would never have left him alive." Her hands clenched in her lap, and her voice turned harsh. "And you were right not to!"

She could just see the faint quirk of his mouth behind his mask. "You're going to be the strict one of Naruto's first councilors, I can tell."

Sakura smiled. It was the first time he'd teased any of them properly in weeks. "Yes, Kakashi-sensei," she said demurely, and dismissed her soundproofing. Mission completed, on all counts. She stood, dusting off her pants, and nodded to the Stone. "It was here, wasn't it, that you told us, the first time: those who abandon their comrades are less than trash. You've never done that before; and you haven't now either."

"I suppose not." Kakashi-sensei traced one name with light fingers before he stood too, and strolled with her back down the river path. "So what were the three of you up to while I was gone?"

Sakura laughed. "We're starting a campaign to get Nine-tails accepted by the village." She smiled up at him, sidelong and coaxing. "I don't suppose you have any thoughts about that?"

"Hmm." Kakashi-sensei rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and Sakura could tell that he was smiling. "Well, I suppose you need to get people used to seeing him around, for starters..."

* * *

Nine-tails bounded across the trees of another forest valley, and behind his eyes Naruto laughed; he could feel the wind blowing past Nine-tails ears, could smell the scents of trees and earth, damp from a recent rain, of quick forest animals, of smoke from a nearby town. Sakura, perched on Nine-tails' neck whooped with glee at the speed, and when Nine-tails was in his own form like this Naruto could feel the brilliance of excitement in her chakra, and the warmth of Sasuke's pleasure, just behind her. Even if Sasuke refused to yell with the fun of it like him and Sakura.

 _Hmph. Foolish kits._ The fox sounded very nearly indulgent, though. Naruto had already figured out that he liked Sakura, especially after getting a good whiff of her when her seal was activated, that night at the south gate. Sasuke and the fox seemed to have reached a mutual agreement to ignore each other, but that was way better than the growling and snapping, so Naruto called that a win too.

And, okay, so the shinobi on the walls still tended to check their weapons when Nine-tails strode up under the sunlight like this, but Naruto was working on that. When he and the fox switched, today, he kept the tails out.

"Naruto?" Sakura rose from her landing and cocked her head at his waving tails. "Did you want to spar for a few rounds before lunch or something?"

He grinned. "Not exactly. Come on, let's see what's at the market."

Sasuke gave him a sidelong look. "You're volunteering to shop for real food instead of agitating for ramen. Definitely up to something."

Naruto grinned, innocent as could be, and grabbed their hands to drag them through the gate. People turned and looked, but, hell, Naruto had been used to that all his life. He concentrated on trotting cheerfully among the produce stalls and arguing volubly with Sasuke over which fish to get for dinner. Finally, after he'd hooked one of the shopping bags over a tail to carry, ignoring the incredulous noise the fox made in the back of his head, the lady with the turnips and potatoes dared to ask, "Er. Uzumaki-kun. The... the tails? Why?"

Naruto blinked at her, wide eyed. "Oh, well, they're kind of handy you know. Like extra hands almost." He squinched up his face, thoughtfully. "Course that isn't always an advantage. I mean, sometimes the fox gets pissy about me using them, and then he..." he yelped as a tail slid under his arm. "Hey, hey, cut that out!" Another snaked up under his shirt and he batted at it. "Cut it out, that tickles!"

 _What are you doing?!_ the fox demanded, outraged.

 _I'm fixing your reputation, shut up and let me work,_ Naruto answered briskly and continued tickling himself with their tails, ignoring the fox's sputtering. The stall keeper had her fingers pressed to her mouth, but her eyes were starting to dance.

Sakura had a hand over her face, which Naruto could tell was totally hiding snickers, but probably looked exasperated to anyone else. Sasuke just rescued the bag from Naruto's tail and rolled his eyes. "We'll take three of the sweet potatoes," he said, ostentatiously ignoring his squirming, laughing teammate; which, of course, was perfectly normal.

There was disbelief on a lot of faces, but the start of amusement also. Possibly even vindication on a few, the people Naruto had pranked most often as a kid. Naruto bundled the tails up in his arms and grinned, breathless, at Nine-tails' appalled silence in the back of his head.

Total win. He'd have to see if Kakashi-sensei had more ideas. Or maybe Iruka-sensei. Yeah; he'd ask Iruka-sensei. He laughed as Sasuke turned back for home, shaking his head, and Sakura linked arms with him, pulling him along.

They were going to change things.

* * *

Tsunade wandered through the Residence library, contemplating the shelves of restricted scrolls and smooth, burled wood pillars. She paused in one corner to trail her fingers along the personal records of the ones who'd come before her. Minato-kun, Sarutobi-sensei, her great-uncle. Her grandfather.

"You didn't know what would happen," she told his memory quietly. "You were doing the best you could for your people. All of us... just doing the best we can and keeping on."

And by that measure, Naruto might really be the best Hokage they'd ever had.

"Tsunade-sama?" Shizune called from the doorway. "It's almost time for the monthly meeting."

Tsunade sighed and pulled her mind back to business. "Anything I need to know before we go in?" she asked, striding for the door.

"A message from the Mizukage just got in, saying Suigetsu might show up here soon and would we please send him home again." Shizune handed over the message strip for her to read as they paced down the Residence halls to the front doors.

Tsunade laughed out loud as they came out into the chill of the afternoon air. "Tell whoever takes that mission to wait until he's finished his drink; we don't want more busted up bars than we can help." She had to admit, she liked that kid's style.

"Yes, Tsunade-sama," Shizune said repressively. "There's one other thing. The master of the last Fire caravan to pass through Hidden Rain says that he saw someone matching the description of Yakushi Kabuto."

Tsunade's eyes narrowed, seeing for one moment that lying smile instead of the trees that lined the way to the administrative center. "So the little snake has surfaced again. Don't let Sakura hear about this," she ordered. "Not until we confirm it. I don't want her taking off after him into the middle of Rain, and most likely her team with her, without full information."

"Yes, ma'am," Shizune murmured.

Tsunade paused at the gates to the administrative center and looked back out over her village, hands on her hips. The streets were busy at this time of day, and a handful of shinobi had taken the roof path, flickering from shadow to shadow. "We're not doing too badly, are we?"

Shizune smiled. "Not badly at all." Of course, then she had to add, gently, "The meeting, Tsunade-sama?"

Tsunade sighed. "Yeah, yeah. I'm going." She straightened her haori and prepared for yet another hour or two of frustrating wrangling. "At least this time the old goats won't be able to claim Naruto and Sasuke haven't earned every bit of their promotions, along with Sakura."

She tossed one last smile over her shoulder, at her busy, lively village full of busy, fractious people, all of them living on that thin line between service and selfishness. Sometimes they fell, one way or the other. Sometimes she fell, like she had for years before Naruto pulled her back. The point wasn't not falling. The point was taking the hand that reached out to pull you up again.

Maybe it was time for her to start keeping her own personal record, as the Fifth. Maybe that would be what she wrote down, to start it.

"Let's go, Shizune," she said, still smiling.

 **End**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [It’s Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2459693) by [Opalsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalsong/pseuds/Opalsong)




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